You an' Me Against the World
by sweetprincipale
Summary: Set immediately after Something Blue. A run in with commandos ends up modifying Spike and Buffy's memories and isolating the pair. Believing themselves to be estranged lovers, they try to reconcile and still beat the Initiative. Spuffy, eventually M.
1. Chapter 1

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Notes: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon. No smut yet, but I promise, it'll get here eventually._

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously not mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them. _

_Thank you for your support! This story has been nominated at The Sunnydale Memorial Fanfiction Awards, (located at /indexdothtml) in the following categories: _

_Best New Author, Best Drama, Best Pairing Conventional, Best Unfinished_

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part I

"You're sure this is where?"

"_No_, I am _not _bleedin' sure this is where. I was escapin', starvin', half-drugged, an' scared out of-" Spike stopped speaking abruptly and studied the terrain at the edge of the grassy campus.

"You were scared?" Buffy couldn't imagine Spike ever admitting he was scared, unless the threat of losing his precious Drusilla had been involved. Now that he was on his own, she had never expected to see him show a "human" side again. Even when he came to them for help after escaping he was angry and demanding. Maybe desperate, but not scared.

"Oh, go on an' gloat." He dropped to his knees and ran his hands along the turf.

"I'm not gloating." She wasn't. She didn't like the way these guys operated. If you're going to take out demons, take them out, don't torture them and mess with their minds. Do that, and you're just as bad as the evil you want to stop. "I was-"

"Shh." Spike held up a hand and crawled forward a few spaces before stretching out flat to the ground. "Faint. Hummin'."

"Like singing humming or machinery humming?" Buffy got down on the grass with him.

"Yes, an entire chorus of little magic elves is singin' as they work down the mines." Spike rolled his eyes and belly crawled forward more, groping and squeezing along the grass to see if he could find some seam in the earth.

"Joke all you want, but this is the Hellmouth."

"Then they'd be evil elves, wouldn't they?" Spike groused. "It's like electrical hummin'. They must have their own grid, Slayer, they're runnin' a fuckin' huge lab and a buggerin' great number of electrified critter cages." He sat up on his knees in triumph, "Okay- it's leading' to that rock formation. I came up up from a grate in the grass, but this works, too."

"What are you doing?" Buffy grabbed his arm and he fluttered his lashes at her.

"Grip a bit lower, Pet- "

"I _will _break your nose." She hissed. He paused, he knew she would do it, no hesitation. Sparing a second for a smug smile that she had him under control, she repeated her question. "Spike, what do you think you're doing?"

"I can still beat the shit out of a rock, even if pulping humans is out of the question. Gonna bust it, get in, get one of 'em by the throat, an' get m'self fixed." He drew back his fist to slam into the slab, and again Buffy grabbed his arm.

"There are so many holes in that plan I cannot even count them!" She cried in a near hysterical tone. "You do_ nothing_. We wait for the others to get here."

"Easy for you- you're not the one who's gonna wither up, but not die, no, just exist in agony for-fuckin'-ever 'cause you can't eat."

"You shouldn't eat people." She ignored the images conjured up in her mind by his impassioned argument. These people were sick. Kill a vampire or demon if they were a threat. Don't subject them to a slow starvation- that would never end. "Look, we'll- we'll make sure you're fed, okay? But if you bust in there, you can't grab anybody anyway, and there are tons of them, and two of us."

Bint had a point. "Fine." He had a sudden thought. "Watch your back, Slayer. In there."

"Going to feed me to some of your old cell mates?" She demanded sarcastically. She really, _really_ wished Giles, Willow, and Xander would hurry up and arrive. Of course, they'd kinda have to track them. They must be half a mile away from the original point Spike thought he'd escaped from.

"Not me!" _God spare me from fools- oh wait, Him an' I aren't exactly on speakin' terms._ Which would explain bein' lumbered with Harmony and this twit in close succession. "You said it yourself, I can't hurt anyone. But what do you think they'll make of you? Little Miss Slayer, able to lift up any one of the big soldier boys in there, wrestle any demon you want into submission." He sidled closer to her. He did so love to annoy her. " 'Course, some vamps might submit to you _without_ too much wrestlin'."

She twitched uncomfortably. Well, as long as she was wishing for a speedy arrival of her friends, and wishing that they could accurately track her, she supposed she could wish she and Spike had never kissed and gotten semi-heavy with the petting when under Willow's spell. Then she wouldn't have bad, half-appreciative thoughts in her head when he put out his way overused innuendos. "Grow up, Spike. Oops." She gave him a saccharine smile. "Guess you lost _that_ chance." His eyes narrowed and she glared at him. "I'm a _human_. Not in danger."

"First off, I'm a human- well, partly, an' it didn't matter to them. Second, you ain't a 'normal' human, Slayer, no matter how you dress it up, and I reckon they'll think you're some sorta half breed, jus' like yours truly. And lastly, Cutie, you might be a human but you're about to try an' get dirt on some big secret government show. I don't think slayer strength is much good against a magazine emptied into your pretty little chest."

She gulped. That was true. She didn't think she was at risk, not from other people, but what if these guys were the "shoot first, lie about the bodies later" type? Knowing what they did to Spike supported that idea. They didn't seem big on sharing and mercy. "I'll watch my back." She conceded.

"See that you do- because I certainly won't watch it for- down!" Spike ended his self-satisfied retort with a sudden backwards scramble.

"Huh?" Buffy found herself tugged backwards into a dense pine growth.

"Vibrations. Humming was more intense. Where the hell are your back up singers? This curtain is goin' up, an' I'm goin' in, with or without you!" Spike whispered angrily._ 'Cause it'd be better to die fightin' than live like a shadow, depending on people I pretty much hate._

"Fine, go in. Maybe you'll get wasted or maybe they'll do me a favor and put another chip in, something to control your mouth!"

The trembling in the ground beneath them became strong enough that Buffy could feel it for herself. "Fine, you've got a point." Spike conceded, backing farther into the pines. Death he could cope with, not bein' able to talk might drive him mad. She remained almost visible on the edge. With a muttered curse he pulled her deeper into cover. _So much for not watching her back._

"Holy cow, it's every secret agent special ops movie Xander ever forced me to sit through." Buffy breathed as she watched the rock formation open from the inside and six heavily armed, masked commandos run out, sporting all manner of strange looking gizmos on their backs and in their belts and chest packs.

"Shh." Spike cautioned, a sudden wave of fear making his pupils dilate and his head swim.

"Sir, there are lights bobbing, heading this way."

"Flashlight beams. Probably college students. Adams, get out in their direction, and if needed put on civvies and run standard protocol."

"Yes, Sir."

"The rest of you keep the neuro tasers out, but don't deploy unless you know you can bag the hostile, or we'll never get any data."

"There's a heat signature here." One of the commandos who had been silent up to this point suddenly seemed aware of a readout one of his hand held gadgets was giving.

Buffy and Spike heard a static crackle and then a voice. "Gray leader, three civilians. At a guess I'd say two students and a professor. I'll run the standard protocol, but suggest you exit the perimeter through the west side for safety, over."

"Understood. When it's done, buzz in and we'll give you our coordinates. Over and out." "Gray Leader", whatever that meant, fiddled with a button and the static went away.

Buffy clutched Spike's hand to get his attention, his eyes unwavering as they followed every movement of the small squadron. When he finally looked at her, her eyes were wide and frantic. In silence he spread his hands and raised his brows, not sure what panicked her.

"Willow, Giles, Xander- out there!" She mouthed and pointed in the direction the lone commando had gone.

"No danger for them." Spike mouthed back, even though he didn't believe it entirely.

"Willow, Giles- magic." Oh God, and Giles had a tattoo of a demon symbol on his arm. What if they knew that? What if "standard protocol" is beat to a pulp or use a "neuro taser", whatever the hell that was?

"What are we doing?" Spike's whispered cry was angry and insistent, only audible to someone with abnormally sensitive hearing.

"Getting to them before 'standard protocol' man does." Buffy hissed, and began working her way through the ever darkening forest. Spike followed her with many silent curses, even though this was the complete opposite of their plans.

"Heat signature's moving, Sir!"

"This isn't another deer, is it?"

"Picking up words, very, very faint."

Spike and Buffy exchanged a worried glance and froze. "Split up?" She whispered, lips against his ear, knowing that with vampire hearing she just need to breathe the words and he would hear them, but no one else would.

"Another faint sound on the register!"

Okay, so no one without vampire hearing or super James Bond spy lab equipment, Buffy thought ruefully. Spike rolled his eyes and pointed, indicating he'd go out towards the road, she could go towards her friends.

Abruptly, the decision was made for them. A tiny pinpoint of red light hit the ground between their feet. "Bloody fuckin' hell." Spike groaned in a voice that Buffy could barely hear. They were in someone's rifle sights. And there was no way of knowing if it was shooting bullets or tranq darts unless you wanted to stand around and get hit.

"I cannot catch a break." Buffy muttered, and they ran as one, her leading towards campus, thinking that they couldn't hurt them in front of witnesses- but that was also heading towards Giles, Xander, and Willow, She veered sharply.

"That isn't losing them, Slayer!" Spike shouted harshly. They had the speed and strength advantage on their side, plus they were running like a well oiled machine, senses kicking in to help them dart and dodge around fallen logs and between trees and branches, But the soldier boys were still gaining. _Must be good old army steroids_, Spike thought bitterly.

"He clearly wanted us to return, and seemed adamant about us not heading back into the woods." Giles led Willow and Xander into the woods through a sidelong path. "Hopefully he didn't watch us to see that we doubled back."

"They must have found the entrance then, right? If they're trying to stop us from getting in? Right?' Willow asked in a nervous, hopeful voice.

"Uh- guys? Do you hear a lot of loud, crashy sounds? Like men in army boots charging this way?" Xander held up a questioning hand.

"Oh dear Lord." Giles paused and changed routes yet again.

"Slayer! On your left!"

Buffy's well placed kick sent a man reeling to the ground.

"Confirmed, escaped HST Seventeen!" A deep voice boomed. "This must be its mate!"

"HEY!" Buffy and Spike both took exception to that.

"Bag 'em! We never had a mated HST!" The leader ordered.

"Shit." Spike knew he couldn't fight them, and his exits were rapidly closing. He dove between one pair only to feel a sizzling pain in his skull unlike anything he'd ever experienced, a dozen times worse than the chip. He staggered, the world going fuzzy gray and red. He was dimly aware of Buffy's shouted taunt at one of the men, and forced himself to just keep moving, keep putting one foot in front of the other.

_God, what's it take to stop that guy?_ Buffy watched in horror when some metal thing was shoved at the base of Spike's skull. The force of the blast knocked him forward a good ten feet, but he kept walking. Some little part of her found time to be impressed.

"Retrieve him!" The commando in charge ordered, still chasing after Buffy.

This was ridiculous, she ran past Spike but couldn't help him right now, and then felt her stomach twist painfully as two things happened at once.

"Hey, where's the paintball party?" Xander's voice was far away, but loud and carrying.

"The guys at McClosky Hall said this was the area." Willow's voice was loud and stiff, she was no good at acting.

The second thing that happened simultaneously along with hearing her friends' voices was that she felt the back of her head explode and all her brains try and squish out of her eyeballs. But the pursuit stopped for a moment. It took her a painful second to realize that the chase hadn't ended- she was just slammed forward far enough to be out of range for a minute.

Spike used the split second he heard the voices to yank free from the soldier who'd managed to get him by the collar of his coat. His assailant was frozen, all of them were. _Caught with their hands in the cookie jar,_ he laughed inside his head, glad that no matter what, he could go out with a snarky thought. He wasn't moving too gracefully, and he couldn't move fast enough to warn her. He watched the Slayer fly forward and he slogged towards her at his hampered speed. The commandos were regrouping waiting to see if the civilian voices would turn into civilian bodies in their midst.

"C'mon." Spike's hand was feeble but it was insistent, and they stumbled away, still running, still pursued, but now the footsteps were stealthy. Others were nearby.

"Is that what they hit you with?" Buffy gasped.

"Not last time. This- didn't black out."

She nodded and they both stumbled to their knees. "You okay?"

"Never better, Slayer, up you get." Spike muttered caustically.

"I heard him. He has that bloody annoying voice." Giles swung the beam of the flashlight but turned up nothing.

"But at least they aren't captured."

"Nor will they be. We'll stay here until we find them, or we've given them enough time to- oh gentlemen! This is the all night laser tag?"

Six very flummoxed young men turned to face two scared looking teens and one smiling older man. "I'm sorry, Sir- this is a private party."

"B-but there was paintball. McClosky Hall had posters." Willow protested faintly, and untruthfully.

"And laser tag." Xander backed up Giles.

"Ohh. You know what? You guys want the woods on the other side of Becker Arts Center. This is ROTC."

Unable to think of a good response to that, Giles nodded stiffly.

"Sorry, Dudes." Xander waved and dragged Willow away, frozen in place as she was. "Do you think that was enough time?" He whispered in a nervous undertone.

"We'll keep looking for them. But with their speed- I'd say yes, even thirty seconds could put them quite a long way away." Giles spoke confidently.

"I feel like I'm carrying the football team on my back." Buffy complained.

"Like walkin' in treacle." Spike agreed. Everything was blurry and headaches were sending strong messages to close his eyes and sleep it off.

"Where are we going? And why do I hurt?"

"They zapped us, remember?"

"Oh. Yeah. Where are we going?"

He couldn't recall. "Oh! Cave. Uphill."

"_Uphill_? No, no, I can barely do flat. I cannot do uphill." Buffy protested.

"We have to, now move your little bum and shut your little mouth."

"Why do we have to?" She leaned exhaustedly against him, and kept trudging.

"Because-" He blinked. "God, my head hurts."

"Someone was chasing us. They hurt you." She remembered.

"Must've hurt you, too." Spike caught her as she fell forward.

"No, before. They hurt you before."

"That's right! They used a - _chip_." Nothing was making sense.

"So why don't we go back to our houses?"

"They're still after us." He realized, and it renewed their sense of urgency.

"Don't worry. I- as soon as I sit down- and eat about a pint of Ben and Jerry's -polish off a handful of aspirin- I am going to go kick some army butt. No one will ever mess with us again." She gave herself a pep talk and ignored his snicker.

"Army. Bloody army wankers!" Spike remembered holding cells, surgery- pain in his head. Not the same kind he had right now, mind you, but a bad pain. Pain that made- problems.

"What's a wanker?"

"Jerk off." He replied tersely.

"Spike, you don't have to insult me. If you don't want to tell me, just say so."

"No... that's what a wanker is." He explained with a sigh. "Slayer."

"Huh?"

"Slayer. I can't- that's not your proper name, is it, Luv?"

"Buffy. Okay, I'm seriously freaked about you now."

"Buffy! Dammit, I knew that. I'm Spike, you're Buffy, we're in trouble, and we're gonna find this cave about- well, I know it's this way..."

"Why are we in trouble, again?" Buffy bit her lip. "I should know that. Spike, I should know that!"

"Don't get emotional on me, Slayer. They knocked our brains for six, that's all. A little rest, and we're good."

"I was very clear about not using the neuro tasers until you had bagged them." Professor Walsh was thin lipped.

"We had them bagged, Ma'am."

"Obviously not, as we are down two HSTs, one an escapee, and the other his mate!" Her fist crashed down on the desk. "A mated pair! We've never had a mated pair!"

"We'll get them back, Ma'am. They were hit with a midlevel tase, they can't go far before they pass out."

"That's on humans. A midlevel charge may barely phase vampires, or whatever type of demon the female was. It almost certainly will not erase their memories completely, and we don't know if there will be accelerated recovery or decreased recovery time. We won't know if it works with long term to short term memory like human subjects! For all we know, we've erased the last 24 hours and nothing more, or we've erased everything but the last week! We won't even know if their memories were affected at all!" Dr. Walsh's tirade was reducing the six battle hardened soldiers in front of her into quivering piles inside of uniforms.

But she wasn't done. "The data you've lost! We could have seen if wiping the slate and reprogramming was more effective and quicker than behavior modification. Even without reprogramming, we could have measured how long their accelerated healing took to begin rebuilding memories. Or if their demon constitution prevented them from losing any memories of significance. The implications to psychology alone-" She put her hands to her head, too distressed to speak any further.

"We plan to do a dawn raid on the area, and the area Hostile Seventeen was originally bagged. They'll have no option but to sit, as running would end in flames."

"You get to do nothing, Leland. I'm placing your spill in Finn's hands for clean up. Give me all your team's recorded data and written log." Her voice was brittle, and she toyed with suggesting he be one of the human control subjects for seeing how long, if ever, it took for a lifetime of memories to be rebuilt after a full strength neuro taser charge. She knew the government wouldn't allow it, not for one of the boys they'd spent time and money training in a special ops course, plus this Initiative program, so she merely stared daggers at him.

"Yes, Ma'am." Leland felt ice shoot straight through him and waited to be dismissed.

"This is it. I think." Spike pointed to a craggy gap in a jagged rock face.

"Don't you know?"

"Yes, I know." Spike huffed and resolutely walked the last few yards at a quicker pace. Even injured, they had made good time- well, good time for humans, pitiful for _them_. But they were a few miles up and over, off of the campus he was sure.

"What are we doing here?"

"Lyin' low until your mates find us or daylight. Then you can walk home, an' I'll- I'll make my way back eventually."

"Mates." Buffy blinked at him. "They thought we were together, didn't they say that?"

"Jus' proves how idiotic they are."

"Yeah. So- what mates are we talking about?"

"Yours! Your pals! The Scoobies."

"That's a television show."

"Is it?"

"I'm so tired. I'm sorry..." She trailed off and rubbed her eyes._ I can't remember his name!_ "Spike! I'm sorry, _Spike_. For the not remembering." She could see her friends faces and hear their voices, feel that she loved them- and couldn't remember a whole lot else about them right now.

"Shut up...Slayer. We'll just wait for -" He couldn't remember what they were waiting for and his head was throbbing more and more insistently.

"Shhhh. Head go boom." Buffy slid ahead of him into the dark crevice, and he followed. In a moment she heard an almighty crashing sound and she fell to her knees, clutching her head. "What part of 'head go boom' don't you get?" She whispered brokenly, unable to open her eyes.

Spike's voice was close to her ear. "Had to block the entrance. Sent some rock over it. We can get out- won't look like we're in here though." Selfish little twit. The noise almost killed him, he was right next to it, she was a few feet away. "I got us here. You keep first watch."

"First watch? This isn't some espionage movie." She forced on eye open and met his.

"Close enough." He muttered. He wrapped his duster tightly around him, and rolled onto his side.

"This place sucks." Buffy complained, and immediately felt like a spoiled brat. It was a cave to hide in. It was supposed to suck. It was probably a four star hotel if you were a bear or a bunny. "Spike! Are there bears in here?" She shook him. He didn't respond. "Spike?" She rolled him over and pressed her hands to his neck. No pulse. No breath, his chest didn't rise and fall. "Oh my God... what'd they do to you?" She put a trembling hand to her mouth in horror. She sank back and tried to process the confusion in her mind. She knew she should be really upset- this man was dead. But... he was already dead. Vampire. Oh, God, duh! What was wrong with her? She slugged him hard and demanded again, "Spike! Are there bears in this cave?"

"I hope so." He opened one eye and glared at her. "They'll eat the one who's alive an' movin' about. You're an entree for Mr. Grizzly if he's in here." He closed his eyes more tightly.

"This is all your fault." She scooted back against the stone wall and shuddered at the thought of spiders and bugs and drippy cave water that would probably trickle down the back of her neck at some point and scare her to death.

"It isn't. Bitch." Spike fell back into a black unconsciousness, oddly at peace because that girl- the blonde bitch- wouldn't let anything happen to him. For some reason.

Buffy didn't realize that she was passing out. She thought she was just exhausted. If she hadn't had something horrible jammed into the base of her skull she might have remembered that sleep didn't come in blood red waves and fuzzy gray memories slowly drifting away. "Just for ten minutes." She thought weakly, and let the darkness take her.

"She didn't return to the dorm?" Giles paced and held the phone to his ear with one hand and wrapped his fingers around his glasses nervously with the other.

"No. And I'm scared." Willow whispered. It was after one. Hours of searching in the dark hadn't located the two, and eventually the trio returned to their respective homes. "Th-there's no message. I don't want to call Mrs. Summers because she might be just fine, but if she isn't just fine, I should call Mrs. Summers, but I don't know if she's fine or isn't fine, Giles!" Willow wailed.

"Calm down. Just calm down, Willow, I'm sure everything will be resolved soon. Now, logically, we know that Buffy could handle any number of humans without any exertion. And Spike, while not able to physically fight, is resourceful and ruthless...and knows I'll rip his bloody head off if he comes back and she doesn't, so we can assume they're working together. Most likely, they were followed, and are either working on losing their pursuers, or they lost them but don't want to return to the dorms or my flat, in order to keep us safe."

"Spike isn't that thoughtful." Willow shivered.

"But Buffy is." Giles soothed.

"What if- oh, hold on, another call. It's probably Xander."

"I'll hold." Giles paced as far as the black stretch cord would allow. What an utter load of rubbish he'd just spewed. Spike would head straight here, demand sanctuary and cigarettes. Buffy would come barreling with the demand for weapons and speaking a mile a minute, all of it peppered with the desire to just go right back out and slay something. As for working together- well, it was possible. Spike _did_ know what would happen to him if he was the lone survivor. Giles tried to wash the anger and worry away with scalding sips of tea but it didn't help.

"He and Anya haven't heard anything!" Willow's voice was back in his ear and bordering on the frequency where humans would find it inaudible.

Giles spluttered and croaked, swallowing too quickly. "Have they looked-"

"At the Bonze, and they drove past Buffy's Mom's house but didn't see anything and they didn't want to disturb her in case it only made things worse. Then they hit the Espresso Pump, the high school, in case they were hiding out there, and the all night pharmacy." Willow babbled frantically.

"The all night pharmacy?" Giles didn't understand why that would merit a search.

"Anya said they needed more condoms. Anyway, no phone calls, no sightings, and I'm freaking, Giles!"

"Yes, I can see that." She must be. Willow saying "condoms" to anyone would be a rarity, saying it to him was nigh unfathomable. "As soon as daylight hits, we'll meet at your dorm, in the lobby. Will you call Xander?"

"Sure. A-are you going to call Mrs. Summers?"

"Not yet. If I haven't found anything by tomorrow night I will. No need to alarm her unnecessarily." _And Joyce will kill me. She already blames me for the summer Buffy ran away, I shudder to think what she'll do when I say I've lost her in the first semester of college on a routine information gathering patrol..._

"-might help?"

"What, Willow?" Giles realized he hadn't heard the last thing she said.

"Is there some kind of spell that might help? Find them?"

"Oh, any number. But you are not to do them." He said severely.

"That's kinda- not fair." Willow squeaked, even though she knew exactly why he said it.

"You are worried, I'm worried, we all need rest. Trying to do magic when you're upset has had- less than spectacular consequences."

"But this is for Buffy, not for me and my broken heart!" Willow pleaded, desperate to help.

"I know." He spoke gently, hearing the grief in her voice. "Let's give it until daybreak, a few hours of searching when we can actually see, and then we'll do a locator spell. A simple one, and I can help you." He could do it himself, but he wasn't trying to punish her, and he realized that was how he'd come off to her the last time he'd advised her against performing magic.

"Thanks, Giles." She said softly. "You're probably right. Last time my spell put Buffy and Spike together in mega bad ways. Who knows what might happen this time?" She tried to lighten the mood, all the while wondering if they were together, as in captured together, in the same cell, or worse, same operating room... A wave of fear made her gag silently.

"Well, the cookies that came after were marvelous." He also tried to lighten the somber situation.

"Guilt induced cookies have extra chips." She confessed.

"Ah, I see." He moved some items around on his desk and found a half plate of cellophane covered cookies and stuffed one in his mouth. Stress made him drink, but he needed to be sharp for tomorrow. Cookies and tea would have to suffice.

"Giles. Promise me she's going to be okay?"

"I- I promise she's going to be okay if there's anything we can do about it." He made the best vow he could.

"Okay. Umm. Goodnight, I guess. What time do I tell Xander?"

"6:00. It should be light enough to search."

"Okay. Bye, Giles."

"Goodnight, Willow. Try not to worry too much. Just pray and hope." He hung up and began doing as he prescribed.

Spike sat up first, with a deep, painful gasp. "I've gone blind!" He cried. Then he tried to focus his eyes, and realized that though the area he was in was pitch dark, he could see very well. "Now that's weird."

"Oh, man. Oh, God..." Buffy opened her eyes and whimpered in pain and a little bit of fear. It was dark but she could see fairly well. Still, her head was on fire, spreading from the back of her neck up and penetrating her brain.

"Hey." A cautious voice reached her ear.

"Hi?" Where am I, who am I with, Buffy thought desperately. Why am I here, wherever this is?

"You alright?"

"My head feels awful." She struggled to stand and gave up instantly. Why fight gravity?

"Not as bad as it was when we got here." Spike scooted closer to her. Dammit, what was her name? Why were they in here, again? He knew that... somewhere in his mind he knew that, and he'd known they were hurt when they'd gotten here.

"True. Sleep helped." She inched towards him until they were a foot apart, facing each other. _I know him. We were- escaping together. Wait. Why would I ever have to escape from anything? _

Images of him pulling this little blonde up a hill and her trudging beside him, crouching with him in the darkness seemed very strong in his mind. And not a hell of a lot before that. "Um. Do you- seem a little fuzzy on the details this mornin'?" He rubbed his aching eyes.

"Oh thank God. It isn't just me." She said with evident relief.

"No, it's both of us. Whatever they did- whoever did it- it's hurt us both." He tried shaking his head and wished he hadn't. "Word of advice- holdin' still is the best pain relief at the moment."

"Noted." She winced. "I know you. I know you- really well."

"Yeah... but I don't know a lot else." He confessed. "An' I'm real lackin' in the details department." _I can't remember her name. But she- we have a history, I just can't remember it. I feel it. _

"You're Spike."

"You're Slayer." It clicked.

"Buffy!" She knew her name. She was sure about it.

"Buffy, I knew that- but I - I call you Slayer." He knew with absolute certainty that he did, and that he had strong feelings about calling her that. That it was a huge part of who she was to him.

"Yeah, yeah you do." She nodded, warmth flooding her suddenly. "And it feels right to be called that."

"Must be a pet name." He managed a smile.

"Spike must be, too."

"I know it isn't my given name... I can't- oh, hell. I can't remember my given name." He looked truly worried, not just pained but scared.

"It's okay. It's going to be okay." Buffy patted his arm lightly, and another flash of memory hit her. She was mad at him a lot lately- but she loved him, very, very passionately. It felt wrong to just pat his arm when she should embrace him.

"Spike and Slayer. We must raise some hell, you an' me." He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.

She blushed and changed the topic. "Those people- why did they want us?"

"I dunno, Luv." He sighed. "I've done bad things. Must have wanted me for that."

"What bad things?" She demanded.

"I can't remember- but I must've! Why else would they chase us? Why would they chase you, you don't look like you're the type to ever put a foot wrong."

"They want me... because I'm yours!" Buffy's eyes widened in realization.

"Mine?" His eyes widened in a shock. "What d'you mean 'yours'?"

"Those men said I was your mate, I remember them yelling!"

"Mate? That means friend. Or- well, it could mean an animal's partner. Humans don't have 'mates' they have wives and husbands or boyfriends and girlfriends or -" Something struck him. "Gimme your hand." He suddenly demanded.

She stuck out her hand and he pushed it away, grabbing her left. "No ring." He pushed it back, but something was niggling at him.

The same thoughts struck her as well. "But there was. Right? A big, chunky, silver ring." Her eyes filled with tears suddenly, even though it hurt terribly to squinch her face up and cry. "We must've had a fight and I took off the ring. And now- we're being hunted down and I won't ever see it again."

"Shh, shh, Poppet." Spike pulled her into his arms and patted her head, feeling that this fit and that it was wrong all at once. "It's just a ring."

"But you asked me to- I mean, I remember..." She trailed off. What if he didn't remember? But she did know. She couldn't remember much, but very recently, he had slid the ring on her finger and asked her to marry him. Then the fight- angry, people all over, they were still working together, but not nice to one another anymore. She sniffled heavily. But she'd been so happy with him. What could have happened in just a little while?

"I asked you." He nodded. "Then - you found out about me. You must've. That I'm bad an' I'm bein' hunted. You broke it off."

"No! I probably just needed time to think, Spike! I mean- would I be out here with you, being chased by some guys with scary weapons in a dark woods if I didn't still love you?" She knew in her heart she'd so anything to help those she loved, and if this was her fiancé, the same rules must apply.

"Slayer..." He looked into her eyes. "You mean it?" Tendrils of memory eased back in. Her happy smile, her shiny pink kisses. He'd love for this girl to be his, he'd asked her, hadn't he?

"Spike, why else would I risk my life to be with you?" She squinted. That didn't seem to make sense to her, and yet, in the traditional scheme of things, it made perfect sense. Stand by your man, and all that.

"Here, Luv." He had a chain on, thick silver. "Wear this 'til we get home, an' you can put your ring back on." He slid it over his neck and fastened it on hers.

She nestled into his arms. "No more fighting."

"Slayer, I don't remember a damn thing- but I know you an' I fight."

"Well, no more stupid fights where we call things off. We just have to work through it. We're not quitters." She said fiercely, again, knowing it was true, but not sure how she knew it.

"Too right." He also knew that in his bones. He pulled her close as he could. "Sorry I got you into this."

"Don't worry about that. How are we gonna get out of it?" She whispered, head pressed to his chest.

"Well, I think we can get out of the cave for a start. I vaguely remember thinking I was obscurin' the entrance, but I thought we could dig out." He tried to stand. "But not yet. Too wobbly."

"Me, too." She comforted. Another thing she knew instinctively, was that Spike was a very proud man. And very smart. And very...cold. "Are you sick?"

"Like I drank all of New Orleans under the table." He laughed mirthlessly.

"No, I mean you're cold. Really cold and- Spike. Your heart isn't beating."

"I'm alive, Slayer, it must be beating." He said dryly. "Maybe you're goin' a bit deaf?"

In answer she jabbed his fingers into the side of his neck. "You don't have a pulse."

"How... how am I doin' this, then?" He slid away from her as she warily eyed him.

"What'd they do to you?"

"No... no, no they didn't do anything to me, except hit my head, we got away." He pinched himself. "You're warm and pulsing, right?'

She checked. "Yeah." Her eyes widened. "Spike! This must be the reason! You're- you're not human. And I found out- I freaked, I broke up with you, they're hunting you, and that's why they called us 'mates', not lovers or boyfriend and girlfriend!"

He pondered in silence, desperate to remember, but anything farther back than him falling on his knees in front of this girl was lost to him. It was like someone had slammed a brick wall down on most of his life, and painted over major parts of what little he did recall. "Say you're right. What am I?"

"A vampire." She said with absolute certainty.

"Oh, for heaven's sake." He scoffed. "Where're my fangs, huh? An' since when was Dracula from the East End?" _Wait- how do I know I'm from the East End? East End of what? I'm English, I got that..._

"Well, what else can you be? If you were a zombie you'd be eating my brain and decomposing, if you were a regular guy you'd have a pulse!"

"If I were a vampire, wouldn't I be drinking your blood and making you my undead bride?" He pointed out.

"No...not if you fell in love with me and I didn't want to be undead." She squirmed uncomfortably. He was raising good points. And something in the back of her mind screamed not to trust him or love him, engaged to him or not. _Maybe I have trust issues. Maybe that's what made us fight. Geez, if I don't know anything about myself, I'm so not judging him._

"That's true. I'd do anything for love." _I know that. I've done it. For her? I don't know, oh sod this, I don't know anything that's actually useful right now! _"I thought vampires were legends." He shook his head.

"I kinda don't think so." Buffy's squirming ended with a clatter and a sharp, wooden stake rolled across the rocky floor, ending at his knees. She looked at him guiltily, and he looked at her with pain and loss in his eyes. "Um. See?"

"You were gonna put me out of my pain? Or were you afraid of what I am?" He whispered, rolling the stake back to her.

"Neither. Neither!" Her voice rang with conviction, and both of them winced at the volume. She lowered her voice. "I don't know why I have it, I just know- I need it. But I know one thing. Not something I remember, but I know- I know when I had it with me this time, I never intended to use it on _you_."

"I s'pose I've got no choice but to trust you." He gave a hollow chuckle.

"Same here. What if you suddenly do decide to bite me? I mean, I seem to _know_, again with the knowing but not the remembering_ how_ I know- which is so frustrating- that you wouldn't ever bite me. Anymore. Now. Now you would not bite me." She nodded firmly, truth sinking in from unknown sources.

"I must love you." Spike shook his head. "'Cause I followed that deranged sentence."

"Are we gonna quibble or are we going to get out of here and get home?"

"We're gonna get home." He staggered up and leaned against the mossy wall. He watched her do the same, and then they smiled at one another.

"Just one question?" Buffy panted, exhausted just from the effort of keeping her traumatized head up.

"Shoot." He didn't need to breathe, but his talking seemed labored anyway.

"Where's home? And where are we?"

Their eyes locked. "Those are damn good questions." He sat back down.

"I know I have a home! And friends! Parents! I know it- I feel it- I just can't think of any of it."

"Don't cry, Poppet, it only makes the pain worse." He whispered. "Come here, we'll figure it out." She stumbled into him and he held her, feeling her warm body soothe him. He smiled inside. If they weren't in so much pain and so tired, he bet they'd be all over one another._ I wonder if we've ever made love? We must have. How could we not have, look at her, she's so sweet, and she smells like sunshine- and oh. Oh, there're the fangs. _He resolutely went back to thinking about Slayer's body, not her scent, and the fangs retracted. She'd never even looked up.

"We'll see where we are. And then- well, we need to eat. I don't have an ID card on me or anything... I don't know my address!"

"We'll find it. We'll look in a phonebook. You know your last name?"

She blinked back tears and shook her head. "I know things. Like- we're in America. I know I'm old enough to get married. But it's like there's splashes of black paint all over my brain. I remember some stuff, but not what would help us."

"You're doin' better than me. All I know is I'm Spike, I came to America from England, and I'm a vampire. And I'm engaged to the prettiest girl I've ever seen. Most of that I didn't know until you helped me figure it out." He stroked her hair.

"You're a good guy." She gave him a half-smile that melted his heart. He was sweet to try to make her feel beautiful in the midst of a much bigger crisis. "Not all vampires are bad." She spoke with certainty again.

"I dunno about that. Think with nicknames like 'Spike' and 'Slayer' you might like your boys a bit bad." He pressed his lips to her forehead.

"I know I like you." She shrugged, not sure about why she liked him in particular, if his dark side added something, or if she'd simply fallen for him as a person. "And right now- that makes up about fifty percent of all my knowledge."

"Yeah, Slayer. I know. We have a way of workin' things out. Big things. That's one of the 'can't remember, but I know it' pieces. I know even if it's just you and me against the world- we're still gonna win."

She felt hope and some measure of strength return. "That must be one of the reasons I love you." She smiled into his eyes and kissed him.

_To be continued..._


	2. Chapter 2

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Notes: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Dedicated to Idiosyncratic Delusions and Lithium Reaper_

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously not mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part II

"Are you feeling strong enough to try an' shift some rock?" Spike stopped kissing her reluctantly.

"Nu-uh." She pulled the cool mouth back to hers. Her head still throbbed worse than anything she'd ever experienced, but kissing was a nice distraction. And God, he was good at it.

"Fine with me." He panted sharply and resumed.

"We'll do a sweep of the area they were last seen in. Now, the cover of the trees should prevent direct sunlight from hitting the vampire enough to burn, but if he crossed outside of the woods, we could be looking for piles of ash. Unfortunately, we haven't tested the neuro taser on an HST prior to this, so we only have a rough idea of how long they might be able to walk before unconsciousness set in. We're guessing a mile is the maximum, and that's _highly_ unlikely. Hostile Seventeen displayed unusual strength and resourcefulness, which allowed him to escape from the facility previously- you'll want to check every conceivable hiding place, and remember that he's already chipped. He can't harm you, but he can get away from you. Don't be afraid to corner him on your terms, there's no way he could injure you." Agent Finn turned to the five alert soldiers whom he considered both friends and comrades. They were all familiar with this HST. It was his mate, the new element, that they would need to strategize for.

"Now the female-" Agent Finn held up a grainy night vision still taken from a recording, "gave off a heat signature, which means she's some demonic element, or a recently well- fed vampire" He handed out copies of the photo, a small blurry woman, impossible to tell if she were young or old, with a cloud of hair flying across her face. "I'm sorry, this is the best shot we were able to retrieve from footage. Based on the strength of the heat signature, we guess demon, in addition to her strength, speed, and ability to withstand a midlevel neuro taser charge. Under no circumstances should you think of her as a human, despite her appearance. She's described as petite and blonde, caucasian, weight between 100-120 pounds- although all we have to go on that is an eyeball estimate from Leland's squad last night, and a force plate reading from one of the guys she kicked. According to _that_ she's a six hundred pound, ten foot tall Amazon." Finn placed his backpack on and gave final reminders.

"A human remains unconscious for a day to two days after a midlevel taser encounter. We're guessing we have six to twelve hours. They'll be pinned down due to daylight. This is a bag mission. Do not kill. Even at the expense of one of us. Walsh needs these two. Are we clear?"

"Yes, Sir!" Five voices replied, saluting smartly.

"Then let's go. Teams of two. If you find nothing within the mile radius, report, and go directly to the coordinates where HST 17 was originally brought down."

"Yes, Sir!" The same chorus, and the team mobilized.

"I bought jellies and chocolate." Xander skidded into the dorm lobby, Anya hanging off of his arm.

"And me. He brought me. I'm helping." Anya smiled brightly.

We can use the help." Giles looked haggard. "I've been up all night. I've no earthly idea where she could be."

"I can't do a locator spell until the magic store opens. I need henbane and aconite." Willow gratefully took a doughnut.

"They probably had to hide. They may be injured. That means you'll want to look for any shelters from sunlight. Buffy would make sure Spike stayed out of direct sun. We'd better move. Daylight."

"On three. One, two- three!" Buffy and Spike hauled the largest piece of rock away and Spike immediately recoiled, two fingers of his hand singed and smoking. "Shit! Oh, shit, that stings!" He sucked on the burns.

Buffy looked at the cave, the rocks they'd disturbed, and made a split second choice. She threw one large jagged piece at the roof of the cave with all her might, and watched a new shower of small rocks join the others to barricade the entrance. "We can't go out there. You'll burn." The entrance was now resealed and rock dust sent them recoiling farther into the cave.

"An' what's more- they probably know we can't travel. They didn't find us last night, but they'll be lookin' today. When it's bright an' they can see." He sat back against the wall. "We better rest all day, move as soon as it gets dark."

"I guess it's the best option." She sat down beside him. Neither of them wanted to ask. But she did. She had a feeling that not asking questions, not saying things in general, was a problem for her. "Any more of your memory returning?"

"Not a damn thing. Oh- little flashes. Nothin' major."

"Same. I think my last name starts with an S." She offered weakly.

"That's good! Still have no bloody idea who I am. Although- bloody rings a bell." He trailed off. "Pain any better?"

"If I could take my head off for ten minutes just to get a break, I would."

"Sleep probably helps. But not here. Too close to the entrance if they come." He gripped her hand, and made his way farther into the darkness. The cave got shallower and narrower as they went back, and soon they had to stoop.

"I don't want to go any further." Buffy drew back, unknown fears tingling in her brain. "I don't like little dark spaces I can't move in."

"Here- we can bed down by this little outcrop." Spike gestured to an alcove that was right at the edge of her comfort zone. "Is that okay, Slayer?"

"Yeah. They can't see us from here. And if they come, we lay low."

"Or we could kick their asses into next week."

"We so could." She grinned. "We're tough, aren't we?"

"Must be. No little softie could tame a big bad vamp." He caressed her cheek and spread his thick leather coat on the hard floor.

"We fought those guys. We got away. And they zapped us but we kept going. We're uber tough." The thoughts helped her, but didn't make the worry go away. "Someone's looking for us."

"I know. Hence the hidin'." He muttered, sinking to his knees and trying to ignore the piercing rocks he felt.

"I mean our friends. And my... maybe he's my dad. Some guy, I just know he's worried." She had flashes of a gray haired man with glasses who she knew loved her and was freaked. She knew she had a mother, too, but images of her wouldn't come. Not even a name, not even an initial. She choked down a sob.

"It's scary, init?" He didn't mean to speak so bluntly, but speaking too softly and placatingly seemed out of character for him and Slayer.

"So scary. Spike? I can't remember what my mom looks like. Or her name."

"Funny how you think of them first. I've been rackin' my brains tryin' to remember if I have brothers and sisters, parents. Do they know I'm undead? How recently did this happen to me? Feels like I'm comfortable in this body, but I don't even know how the hell it works."

"And us." Buffy cast her doubts aside and joined him on the blanket he made, curling to his side. He immediately put an arm around her and his touch electrified her. "What if we never get our memories back? I'm never going to remember how we met, how we fell in love. I barely remember you asking me to marry you. All I remember after is kissing. Lots of kissing. And arguing over photos and ...other things. Maybe our exes?"

"Let's not bring them up, Luv. We have plenty to cope with, don't we?"

"No food, no water, no memory, and really crazy guys with scary weapons chasing us. Yeah, we've got plenty."

"But it upsets you the most, doesn't it? The lack of 'our story'?"

"Yes! Not the most, maybe. But really a lot." She pouted.

Spike found whole new reasons for living and lyin' in that lip. Well, not exactly lyin'. "Do you wanna hear how it went?"

"Huh?"

"Good." He proceeded without missing a beat. "There was this badass, lowlife type of guy. Big into leather. Motorcycles. Yeah, he had a motorcycle. He was searchin' for somethin'. And he came to this town."

_Oh, a fairy tale, _Buffy giggled to herself and snuggled into his chest, ignoring all the poking pebbles and God know what else that she could feel through the coat. "Did he find it?" She asked, looking up into his eyes. It was pitch dark, even darker behind this hollow of the cave, but she still could see his eyes gleaming.

"Oh, yes. A beautiful girl. And she was tough, God, and he wouldn't have had it any other way. But she was sweet..."

"She liked her men wild- but good at heart." She interjected.

"So they were a perfect match. But then- one day he ran afoul of some not so nice types. An' they out numbered him. He fought to get away, but they got him anyway. And he died."

"This is a very sad story."

"Shush, I'm fixin' it up." Spike nipped her ear lightly, automatically, unsure of why he did and enjoying that it was reflexive, something he didn't have to jar his brain to do. "He didn't stay dead. He came back. For love. For love of this girl. She was his sunshine, even though he could never walk outside in the daylight again, he didn't need to- if he could just have her."

"Oh, Spike. I think- I mean, I don't really _know_- but that's probably the sweetest thing anyone ever said to me. Even if it's all made up."

"Glad you approve. Wanna let me finish?"

"Sure."

"So- he realizes he has this problem, but he doesn't tell the girl. For some stupid reason. Or maybe because he loves her so much and he thinks she can't love him back if she knows, and he's scared. Whatever, he makes a bloody mess, an' proposes to the girl, gets her a big, nasty lookin' piece of a ring, 'cause she's his scrappy little terror, his biker chick- an' she says yes. Until these big demon types hunt him down. An' then these army types. She finds out the truth, an'-"

"Wait! Wait, this is my part." Buffy pressed her hand to his shoulder urgently.

"Have a go, then. What happened?"

"She was mad. Because he lied- not mad about what he was. Because she has- I mean I think she has- a hard time trusting guys. And he didn't tell her the truth and she thought the whole engagement was some kind of- fake thing. It was. It feels like it was all a big fake thing." Buffy shook her head and groaned at the sensation. She was grateful when Spike's hand came up and held it steady, pressing it into his breastbone. "So she called off the wedding- but only because she needed to figure out if she could trust him."

"And did she?"

"Not- about everything, But about the love part. Now she sees why he was scared. Demons, vampires, who'd believe that? So she forgave him."

"Can I have a go now?"

"Fine." She puffed out the lower lip and he paused for a sweet, suckling kiss before concluding.

"She realized he was in danger, and because she's powerful, way more powerful than you'd believe, she came with her lover to hunt down the bastards that hurt him- and demand they'd fix him...something they did after he was a vampire... I dunno right now, something bad they did to him. They got outnumbered and hurt, but they escaped and survived. An' they both knew, even if they're always runnin', it'll be okay, 'cause it's the two of 'em against the world, and the world can bloody well run an' hide."

"Because they really love each other. In spite of everything?"

"Yeah. That's why." Well, sod it, he didn't know, and it seemed entirely plausible.

"To be continued, huh?"

"Another chapter after we get outta here, I guess." He tightened his grip on her. "I'm sure we're gonna get out of here. But I wanted to let you know, Slayer, that I'm sorry, For draggin' you in."

"Like you could keep me out." She purred, and traced his jaw. He made a low rumbling purr of his own. She swallowed, surprised how the sound sent jolts of arousal through her.

He swallowed. He could smell the hot aroma of her musk. Must be a vampire thing. He could actually _smell_ a definite scent of a woman in... well, for lack of a better term, in heat. And they were both too injured and headache-y to do anything about it. His groin complained, trapped in his zipper. "I'm sorry, Luv. I don't think I can yet."

"What? Can what?" She blushed, knowing exactly what he meant, but for some reason feeling shy about it. _C'mon! This is your boyfriend. Probably dated for awhile now, if he was proposing. We probably did it a hundred times, just 'cause you can't remember any of them doesn't mean it isn't true._

"Sorry, my mistake." He had a slight edge in his voice that he was puzzled about. _Do I always speak to her like that? Like we're in the middle of a fight?_

"No. No, Spike, sorry, I knew what you meant, I just got weirded out. I sort of- um- don't remember any of the times when we..." She gestured to their hips.

"I can't either. We could look at it like we're gettin' our first time over again. Or we could just relax and realize we're probably natural at it. Bet our bodies 'know', just like our minds 'know' things they can't remember."

"Thank you. I'm sure, either way, you're right." She whispered. He hadn't made her feel stupid or bad for not remembering what were probably some really special times. He even put a comforting spin on it. "I'm sorry that I don't feel so hot."

"It's mutual. The desire's there, Slayer, but if I move, I think my fuckin' head'd come off before you did."

"Which isn't the way I'd like us to do things." She tittered nervously.

"This is not the best way to do things, I admit." Giles refused to let his quartet split up. They'd already seen two men in rumpled olive drab as they entered the woods, looking like they'd just stripped out a top layer of clothing. Willow, surprisingly, was the one to get them past these "sentinels".

_Ten minutes ago_

Without batting an eye, she'd led them right past. "Hi Riley! Did you grade my paper? Oh, well don't worry about it, I think I did okay, and did you know the ROTC was out here last night, and it seemed really pretty in the dark, and it's even better in the light, and we're taking a nature walk. See you at class!"

"What the hell was that? Who the hell was that?" Xander did a double take, staring between Willow and the broad shouldered man as they walked away.

"That's Riley Finn, he's a TA for our psych class."

"Not him, _you_! All he did was smile and try to open his mouth. You talked him into submission! I thought only Anya could do that."

"Hey!" Anya frowned.

"I babble when I'm terrified. And he's really polite, he won't interrupt a lady. Good combo. _This_ time" Willow sagged against Giles. "So now I feel all brave and woozy."

_Present_

"If they're still out searching, which we can tell they are- that's good." Giles whispered.

" They don't have her then." Willow pressed a hand to her heart in relief.

"They at least don't have one of them." Anya pointed out. "I assume we want to get Spike back?"

"Not really." Xander muttered.

"We need to." Giles said firmly. "And from now on- don't speak. Don't use names, and act like you're collecting sample for this 'nature walk'. You don't know where cameras or recording devices are."

"Riley, you can't let them walk all over this place, man!"

"I don't have a choice. Standard protocol for more than three civilians is to maintain unrestricted motions unless an HST is present. And we got nothing."

"We ain't gonna _get _anything with those four cloggin' up the field." Gates gestured to the dense forest. You couldn't see a trace of civilian or soldier. "We have four heat signatures mixin' it up now!"

"Well, we had no heat signatures before, so that means this area is clean." Finn tapped a button on his vest and spoke into the small microphone in the collar. "Lilac team, move to a perimeter of a quarter mile from the entrance clearing and continue fanning out. Remember- all covered or enclosed areas- open 'em."

"Aren't you just supposed to be able to sense where she is? Like Lassie and Timmy?" Xander was ready to cry in frustration. Even if those goons didn't have his best friend, she could be lying broken and mangled someplace, or shot. The Buffster was amazing, but she wasn't bulletproof.

"Unfortunately, as much as I love her and close as we are- I can't 'sense' her. Nor do I appreciate being compared to a collie." Giles frowned.

"We should just do the - thing." Willow insisted, careful not to use the word "spell" in case they were overheard.

"It would be quicker." Anya pointed out. "Although- as long as we're here- they can't search aggressively as they would without us here."

"We're running interference as well as looking." Xander nodded.

"Let's get farther away. I'm sure if they were being pursued, they'd get away from the woods, less obstacles to clear." Giles gestured towards the highway side of the forest. "On the other hand, they might go deeper into the woods for better cover. If only I knew if they were incapacitated or not, if they were more worried about running or hiding..." _This is killing me. She's never been "missing" before. Run away, yes, captured, but not just MIA when I have _no_ idea of her plight. This is killing me..._

_ This is killing me. _Spike felt her shift lazily beside him, shivering slightly. He dozed off and on, always woken by the overpowering scent of her and the feel of her against him.

Buffy opened her eyes, finding the startling blue ones looking down at her. She couldn't see they were blue, but she remembered. Blue eyes and blonde hair, and firm lips. _Firm other parts- oh my God._ Her insides ached painfully. She made a little whimpering sound, and he was pulling her arms around his neck, sitting them up. "Spike?"

"Shh. I know you want to. We'll do it this way- won't hurt our heads- or our backs."

Her mouth dried out as he effortlessly sat her astride his lap. He rested on the wall, she leaned her head wearily onto his. He drew his legs up, making a back rest for her. She marveled at how his closeness, how the feel of him straining underneath her temporarily took the fear and exhaustion away. Again she met his eyes, and his lips, and she nodded, fighting to control her breathing. _Don't be nervous, he loves you, he's going to marry you. You're going to spend your lives together. Hold onto that happy feeling, something you can totally remember, the night he asked you, how much fun you had planning..._

He felt her nod and deepened the kiss, one hand snaking between them. He undid his belt with one hand, fingers skillful and quick, and paused before touching her, even though she was right against him. He let his hands trail up and down her back instead, comforting, pressing into her achey muscles.

"Ohh." A short, satisfied gasp ripped out of her throat. No wonder she was all wet. Look what the guy could do with a back rub...

"I'm lookin' forward to a proper bed." He moaned when she arched against him, her perfect, round bust rubbing his face.

"I wonder if we live together." She held his head her as buried his face longingly into her tee shirt covered cleavage.

"If we don't now, we will soon. You'll be Mrs. Buffy-" He trailed off. "Dammit." He said quietly but with heat.

"It's okay. I'll be Mrs. Spike Something." She kissed the top of his stiff, slicked back hair gently. His mouth opened and pressed kisses across her breasts, through the shirt and bra, but it was still electrifying, especially when his hands left her back and started massaging her front, cupping and kneading, but not taking off her shirt.

"Too cold for nudity." He whispered mournfully. "But you know how beautiful I think these are." He bit down softly on the nipple rising through the fabric.

"Do you remember what they look like?" She asked.

"Beautiful. It's somethin' I know, Slayer. I know how gorgeous every inch of you is. No matter what they do- they can't change the fact that I think you're beautiful."

She kissed him hungrily, tilting his chin up. Using his shoulders for support, she unsteadily got to her feet. "Luv?"

"It's too cold for nudity, but these pants have to come off." She slid her khakis down, and almost fell trying to get them off over her boots. Spike's forearm came up and acted as her balance bar, and she shucked off her boots and pants, squatting back down and kissing him again before she let him place her in a straddle across his lap.

"Feel like I oughta tell you that you don't have to." Spike rubbed his head, and then hers, a soothing, stilling gesture. "Since I can't remember doin' this before, y'know?"

"It feels like, whoosh, I just met you and now we're all cuddled up and- pokey." She traced his zipper, still strained.

"So, I guess I'm offerin' to wait until we get our memories back."

"And if they never come back?"

"I'll become very, very friendly with my right hand." He joked, a coarse laugh underneath his words.

"It's a good thing I don't want to wait then." Buffy carefully slid the zipper down and tried not to act stupid when she felt how big he was. _Wow. That's mine? Wow. Now stop. Stop acting like some little virgin who's never seen one before. You've seen this one hundreds of times. Probably._

His fingers moved of their own accord when her small, hot hand wrapped around him. His reaction was to bury two fingers in the soaking crotch of her thin cotton underwear and trace and rub and please. Soft, plump little lips. Tight. Firm. She was a paradise._ I wonder if I was her first._

_ I wonder if he was my first. Nah. Not with a nickname like Slayer. I probably had my share of wild encounters. _His finger nudged aside the strip of cloth concealing her womanhood, and parted her with one slim, cool finger. One finger pushed inside slowly, and she gasped. _Okay...maybe he was the first. I mean, Slayer is just part of me. I'm also Buffy. And Buffy planned a pretty white wedding. Slayer is the one who said yes to the hot vampire groom._

_ Good God, she's tight on just a finger. But she's soakin' my hand, so I'm gonna guess we're good to go... _"Scoot up a little higher, Luv." He murmured.

She gripped his shoulders for support, and felt his hand come down between their intertwined legs, and he held himself steady. "My turn." She said in a high, tense whisper, and positioned her center over the tip, rubbing them together for a few moments first, listening to him moan and make muffled pleas under his breath. She smiled. "You really want me, huh?"

"Yes." He growled. "An' you're drippin' on me. I'd say it's mutual." He was again startled at his tone. It was like he challenged her at random. _Is that how you speak to the woman you love? You haven't even told her that you love her, and she's being hunted down for your sake. _

"It's mutual." She snapped back. _Geez, we're kind of- hot tempered- when we're with each other. You'd think we could cool it in the bedroom. Well- cave. _

He softened his tone. "Sorry. Not had such a good few days, I guess. Yes, I want you. I love you and want you."

"The man I love. Of course I want you, too." She leaned forward and let his lips catch her own, tongues tangling gently as she slid.

"Bloody hell." He bit her tongue as his jaw clenched shut suddenly. His eyes rolled back in his head and a tremor seized his shoulders. His cock, only about half of it, was engulfed in the tightest, wettest, hottest silk in creation, and he knew that nothing else ever felt that good in his entire life.

Her noise was less enthusiastic, small, half-pained, and half-desperate for more. His eyes flared open in confusion. "Baby?"

_He called me Baby. I love that._ "Maybe I'm not used to being on top." She guessed and said no more. If she'd felt like elaborating, she could have told him that she felt like she was being split down the middle, but that she kind of liked it. It was a good burn, and the more she wriggled, the deeper he went- the better it felt.

He tried not to thrust. He didn't want to move his or her head suddenly. Mind-numbing pleasure or not, every motion was still a reminder that the inside of his head still felt like someone had tossed his brain in a blender and hit liquefy. "Oh, God." He grabbed her hips and worked herdown, maybe faster than she would have gone, but the alternative was plunging inside her and he doubted the wisdom of that.

Her whimpered noise was muffled by his lips. "Wow. Wow." She finally nodded as she came to rest, locked with him, fuller than she'd ever felt before, every squeeze of her muscles creating new openness.

"Bloody fuckin' wow." He conceded with a little laugh. "You're incredible."

"So are you."

"Just the way you feel on me." He held her close in awe.

"No one ever touched me like that." She whispered, equally pleased. "I mean-"

"I know what you mean." He winked. "Some blokes take their birds on a second honeymoon. I took mine on a second first time together."

"I bet our first time was- hot and wild." She blushed._ I bet I was wearing something slutty, too._

"I'm sure it was. Probably woke every neighbor on the block...probably took you on the bed, the floor...with you, maybe on the ceiling." He groaned as she rocked her hips softly to his.

"Not like this. This is like- severely disabled sex." She pouted.

" 'S okay." He beamed lazily at her. "You have some set of muscles in there, Slayer."

"You ain't seen nothin' yet." She grinned back, and let him hold her tight.

Even without extra movement, just her long, torturous squeezes to please each other, it was fantastic. Between his fingers softly circling her nub and his hot, sweet words in her ear, praising her, loving her, she came shortly. Add in her muscles vibrating and milking him into a frenzy, and she came again. Admittedly the second time was more powerful and she instantly regretted throwing her head bak, but the pleasure made the headache worth it.

His hips and hers ground together. Not thrusting, not pumping, damned difficult though that was, but sudden movements were not tolerable. "You're not gonna be able to cum like this, are you?" Buffy whispered regretfully.

"The hell I'm not." Was his brittle response, teeth gritted in ecstasy. With a feral growl he grabbed her to his chest more tightly, his strong fingers indenting her soft bottom with one hand, her soft nape with the other, and he shot stream after stream of cool fire into her quivering pink tunnel.

Together they wincingly settled down, covered up, and sighed. "Know what?" Spike laughed suddenly.

"Hmm?"

"We must have the most incredible sex life you can think of. Look what we can do while both of us are injured, have amnesia, and all we have in the way of accommodations is a dark cave."

"Think what we could do with some candles, a bed, and without the killer migraine." She caught on.

"My point exactly, Slayer." He kissed her head and tucked her closer to him. "We have good times ahead. As long as we don't get captured an' killed."

"Never gonna happen." She smiled, and went to sleep.

"This is unacceptable, Agent Finn." Walsh's voice was strained, but not brutal, as it often was when addressing others in her ranks.

"We used every method available to us. We checked a mile radius, and I sent out Graham and a team to do a further half mile. But I seriously doubt a they made it that far."

"I don't know whether to doubt it or not. Hostile Seventeen wouldn't have been able to feed. How many days has it been since his escape?"

"I'm not sure ma'am, it's been about two weeks. I think."

"Make sure! His strength depends on his last - actually don't bother. One can assume his mate procured food for him."

"They might have had a car, an ally?"

"Doubtful. Nonetheless...if they managed to hide by daylight, they'll begin to move tonight. I want you to take two teams and blanket the area."

"Yes, Ma'am." He said after a moment of obvious hesitation.

"I know what you're worried about, Finn. Yes, patrols in other areas are important. But these two are priority. Get them. At any cost." She paused. "That includes civilians."

Riley gave her a startled look. "If they're aiding and abetting, you mean?"

Damn that sweet, innocent Iowa streak. That was not what she meant, but it was certainly not what she could legally admit to. "Of course." She gave him one of her rare smiles. "Now go."

"I have to go. Like- now." Buffy sat up, and Spike sat up as well, both making twin protests as their heads shifted.

"I'll see if it's dark enough." He got to his knees.

"No. I mean, yes, if you want- but I have to pee. And I'm starving. And thirsty. And apparently- whiny."

"Wantin' basic human needs isn't whinin'." He listened hard. "There's water drippin'. Can you hear it?"

She didn't know why she could see so well in the dark, she figured her eyes had adjusted. She was amazed that when she tried, she had this like, sonic hearing. She was all with the super girl. "It's in the back." She gestured to the narrowing belly of the cave, the part she would have to crawl into.

"I'll check it out." He said with an indulgent shake of his head. "The things I do for my Slayer."

While he crawled off, she tried not die of embarrassment. The cave wasn't huge, and there was really not a latrine friendly area.

"I don't think it's much, an' I don't know how safe it is to drink, but there's water drippin' off one of those things- stalagmite or tite or whatever the hell it is. Why can I remember what you call bits of rock, but not my name?" Spike reemerged but stayed on his knees, looking up at her with pained eyes.

"I remember a little more. When I rest. And I think whatever they hit us with- zapped memory. But memories are different from basic knowledge, so yeah, that's why we know rocks and math and stuff, but have no clue about ourselves. Anyway, I'm doing a little better after the nap. My name is Buffy Summers."

"Summers. Pretty name for a pretty girl." Spike watched her inch towards the bottleneck-like narrowing of the cave. "I'll come in with you if you want." He offered.

"I can do it." She smiled. "I've done way scarier stuff". _Things with vampires. I've killed vampires before- or at least seen them. Or do I just have really vivid dreams? But I know there are good vampires. I _know_ that._

"I know you have." He laughed. _She's damned impressive when she fights, seen her go hand to hand with- now where'd that come from?_ He just remembered her fighting with several large male figures. Not the army boys. Not himself. "And she picks 'em up an' hurls 'em down. I don't think she's all human, either..."

Buffy let a drop of water fall on her tongue. Not a lot to be said for one drop, either way. She waited until several more fell and she swallowed. It was wet and she wasn't going to die if she drank a little water, which was more than could be said if she didn't. Unless this water had some kind of chemical pollution stuff going on. She decided two mouthfuls would keep her alive until dark and most likely not poison her. Working her way farther back, she found a spot littered with dry leaves and twigs and something else she didn't want to know about, and took care of her other pressing need. "I'm so not primitive girl. I'm not camping girl. I have decided that. If I was camping girl before, I'm not now." Washing her hands under dripping water took time, but she did it, and then crawled painfully back to her boyfriend.

"Alright?"

"Alive and kicking." She sank down to his coat gratefully. "But not so much with the kicking."

"Hey...Slayer? You got any memories of you havin' super powers?" He asked cautiously, as she leaned against him.

"Just- being good at fighting." She nervously twisted her hands.

"I watched you fight. I've seen you pick up a man twice my size somewhere." He cocked his head. "You see in the dark. You hear the tiny sounds I hear- and we both kept goin' for quite some time after gettin' blasted. I'm a vampire, undead man walkin'." He looked right into her eyes. "What's your excuse?"

"I don't know my excuse." Her eyes began to tear up. "I'm not- normal. But- who are you to talk?" Her tone became defensive, and she scrubbed her wrist across her lids.

"Hey, now." His finger caught hers. "I'm the man who doesn't care what you are. You're my Slayer."

"And you're Spike." She let her eyes drift closed and her mouth release the first thought that rolled from her clouded mind. "Mr. and Mrs. William the Bloody, Spike."

"William! Thank God, I'm WIlliam. Oh no, _William_. what kind of a name is _William_?" He went from relieved to disgusted in two seconds.

"You're worried about the William part? What about 'the bloody'? Isn't that a little bit concerning?"

" 'Slayer' isn't too fluffy, either, Luv."

"Good point. Fighting, huh? Oh! Oh, you know what? I bet we were in a gang. Or gangs. The Bloodys. Maybe. And- the 'Scoobies' sounds familiar, but that's not a good gang name, if you ask me..."

"You could be right. It'd explain us runnin' into so much trouble. And the monikers. The fightin'. It'd explain us fightin'. We might be from rival gangs."

"Forbidden love. Now that's chick flick goodness."

"It won't matter. We'll get shot of whoever wants to keep us apart, won't we, Pet?"

"Mm, yes, we will." She looked up at him, falling in love with his voice, the huskiness in his tone when he made these declarations. "They can't stop the two of us."

"You could have picked a much simpler spell." Anya pointed out as she perched on the edge of Giles' couch. He and Willow sat in a circle of sacred sand. A campus map, a map of Sunnydale, and a map of California sat between them, and over top of all three maps sat a candle in a rough hewn clay bowl.

"Let the mojo meisters work." Xander stood outside the circle, holding one of Buffy's shirts.

"You're sure this has to be a favorite shirt?" Willow asked nervously. "If Buffy isn't dead, she'll kill me when she finds out I used her favorite peasant blouse as spell fodder."

"The more personal the object, the stronger the spell." Giles reached for it, and then paused. "Oh bother. We need something of Spike's, too."

"Why?" Xander demanded.

"In case they were separated."

"Who cares if they were- oh, okay, okay, what do you have of his?" Xander gave in.

"Nothing. That I can think of. No, wait, Anya, there should be a black tee shirt with several holes in it sitting on a shelf in the laundry room."

"Holes?" Willow questioned.

"Arrows." He explained. "From our little Thanksgiving floor show."

"Yeah, next year, I say we order pizza and pray for peaceful cohabitation of all indigenous peoples." Xander spoke up.

"Seconded." Willow raised her hand.

"Motion carried." Xander sighed.

"Concentrate!" Giles snapped.

"Here!" Anya bustled in with the shirt and held it out to Willow.

"We'll start with Buffy." Giles said, and lit the candle. He gave Willow a significant look, and the two of them began to chant slowly, in unison. When it was done, they dropped Buffy's shirt over the candle. The fabric burned but didn't smoke or flame. In a matter of minutes, wax dripped from one of the specially cut holes in the clay bowl. The foursome watched nervously as it pooled into a thread, rolled, and landed on a precise spot on the Sunnydale map.

"That was so cool." Xander blinked at the seemingly alive wax. "It's like Flubber. But wax."

"Again." Giles ignored Xander, his heart hammering with relief. Buffy was alive- well undead. She had a spirit presence in this realm, and that was all that mattered to him. No matter what anyone had done to her, she would always be his Buffy.

Willow began chanting with Giles and they dropped Spike's shirt. The wax came out a different color this time, but bounded and rolled like it was pushed by an unseen fingertip until it landed on top of Buffy's location. "They're together!" She peered at the map, hands clasped in thankfulness. "Let me see, this is up across the campus boundary line. The other side of the highway. There are lots of old caves and a quarry out there."

"Cover. Good. Maybe we can get to them before dusk. Xander? Do you have your car?"

"Drove it over here."

"Excellent. You three go in that, I'll take mine, and then there'll be room for Spike and Buffy when we find them." Grabbing the maps with renewed vigor, he blew out the candle and strode out the door.

His three young friends waited patiently. Giles reentered sheepishly. "Yes, the car keys, I realized it." He snatched them from the hook, and marched away again, this time accompanied.

Each crash was accompanied by a groan of pain and a three second head rubbing. "It's still sort of light." Buffy put down one of the boulders, amazed that she could lift it. More amazed because not only could she lift it, but she could lift it by herself, even though she felt like crap. Spike and her working together were beyond awesome. They were like Super-Couple. Whatever made them fight before was so of the past. She wouldn't give up a guy like this, no matter what his "living conditions" were.

"I'll bundle up, stay low. We gotta move. You need to eat and so do I." His fangs itched, but he kept them in.

"How do you eat? You don't kill people." _Anymore. Uh-oh. He used to? I think I knew he did that. Uh-oh. Oh, so not okay._

"I must get it from willing donors. I don't hurt anyone. I- _can't_ hurt anyone." _Anymore. Oh, fuck. I'm a killer. I'm a bad dog an' they collared me. It isn't that I don't want to hurt 'em, it's that I _can't_. They did somethin' to me, just not sure what._

Their eyes locked, and it was one of those moments where you know the other person knows but isn't saying anything. They silently began to shift the rocks again.

He broke first. "Everyone eats." He said softly.

"I know." Just as quietly. She didn't meet his eye. More rock shifting, now listening for noises outside the cave. "Would you stop?"

"Eating?"

"Killing." Her eyes were scared, not of him, but that he'd say no.

"Yes." He didn't need to kill to eat. If he remembered anything about vampires, they drank blood. If they got carried away, they probably killed their victims. He remembered watching this beautiful girl on top of him, whimpering his name and holding him like he was precious as she came around him. And he also remembered that she had a set of lethal moves. He'd be a fool not to give up killing, for either reason.

"Promise?" She knew he wasn't good. She also knew he made deals and kept them. And above all, she knew he was hers, so she was willing to gamble a little.

"Done deal." The tension left them and they were able to smile. "But I gotta eat something."

"I wonder if animal blood works."

"I don't know, either. Kind of gross if you think about it. All I really want is-" he'd been about to say "spicy chicken wings" but instead he felt his face shift and a much deeper voice said, "you."

She punched, he tried to, they both fell to the ground, clutching their heads. His pain was obviously much worse, and she held his head steady as he convulsed. "Spike? Spike!"

"W-wasn't to hurt you." He struggled to say. Dim light filtered in the cave, and he took her hand, looking into the green eyes. "D-didn't mean to- change."

"Shh. Shh, I didn't mean to hit. I never saw you like that before. It scared me. I seem to hit when I'm scared."

"An' when I try to hit back, it's like a bomb goes off in my head." He smiled in self-mockery, "Guess we know you'll never be a battered wife."

"Don't joke about that! And don't joke about me hitting you! You're not going to be a battered husband, either! Spike, I hate this. I hate not knowing, I hate playing hide and seek with my own life! Doing things that I don't understand the reason for." She pressed kisses across his now human brow.

"I know. Instincts. With me goin' all fangs to the front. I know I'd never hurt you though." He cupped her cheek, and she sighed into his hand, leaning low over him, smoothing his hair, rubbing his forehead.

She noticed his pupils dilate and his mouth quirked into a smirk, then a frown as he stared at her skin as she bent over him. "What is it?"

"Willing donors. I bet we have all this figured out now, an' we just don't know it, but I think more of our memories are missing than we think."

"What do you mean? I'm not following."

His fingers curled gently around the neck of her thin tee shirt and tugged it down her shoulder. Her eyes and fingers traced what was revealed. Scars. Bite marks. Fang marks."Lots of things don't add up, Luv. An' here's another piece of the puzzle. You must've fed me at some point. But I don't know when."

_That's how much I love him. I gave him my blood so he could survive._ "You must be pretty special to me." She whispered.

"Must be."

"Show me. The vampire again. I won't hit you, I promise."

He transformed, reluctantly. His fingers ran over his face, finding her fingers doing the same. "Hideous. I'm no pretty boy like this, am I?"

She tried to see with her heart, but it wasn't easy. She thought she'd feel some warmer, more accepting pull inside. The cry of "this is the man you love", but it didn't come. _Am I that shallow? Get over yourself, Slayer. _"You're the same as ever. You have two eyes, a nose, a mouth. The forehead lumps up and the teeth shoot down, but- hey-" she forced a smile, "you could have wrecked your bike and then you might be all scarred up. Maybe dead. I mean- the dead where we can't still be together."

"Maybe that would be easier for you." He sat up, shaking his head, human features returning. "I was a fool to come back, wasn't I? Should never have fought death, 'cause now you're in trouble, too. "

"Maybe they're hunting us both." Her eyes widened. "I bet they were. I'm like- mutant strong. I bet I have funky chromosomes and I'm like the girl of steel or something. They were hunting us both down."

"You don't know that, Slayer."

"No. But it's possible."

"You hate what I am."

She bit her lip. Something inside yelled at her that she did indeed hate vampires, that they killed, and hunted, and preyed on innocent humans. A smaller voice reminded her that there were exceptions to every stereotype. "Okay. But I don't hate _who _you are.

I don't hate _you, _Spike." She kissed him suddenly, full on the lips. "Whatever you are, or I am, I know the odds are better when we're together." She scooted up close to him and tilted her head. "Okay. You need to eat. So eat."

He was stunned, and touched, and really, really turned on all the sudden. He could hear her heart hammering and see her trying not to show that the idea scared her somewhat. His face changed and reverted quickly. "Later. You didn't eat, so you're too weak to share yourself with me."

"You're hurting, too. Worse, since that thing zapped you."

"Doesn't matter. We're gonna be home soon, and I must have blood there, or at least some clues as to how I get it." Again their eyes met with solemn knowledge.

"We still can't remember where home is."

"Shit. Well, someplace is better than here. We're strong. We'll get some cash and we'll get to a different town if we have to."

She took his hand and pulled him up with her, pretending she didn't feel him lean on her. "Yeah. Or just lay low in a motel somewhere. Our memories have to come back eventually."

"Sure they do." He encouraged, and the rock shifting began again.

"If they don't...it'll be okay. I can make new memories with you."

The sun was setting as they finally furtively climbed out, dusty, dirty, squinting in the light. Spike's duster was covered in rock grit and scuffed terribly. He held it over his head and face, and followed Buffy like a silent black shadow.

"The road. Towards the big buildings. It must be a school." She whispered, and he nodded.

"We've covered all this track, and the next step is to head up into those rocky passes on foot." Xander explained to a grimy and gritty trio of searchers.

"Then we go on foot."

"Okay. Just checking that this is the plan. And that there isn't a more pin-pointy spell you could do? Because wax blobs are cool, but they still aren't too specific."

Giles glared and handed him a flashlight. "Don't slip."

"I'm gettin' edgy." Spike finally admitted. "I can hear voices, an' I smell people. An' we're headin' towards them."

"We can go back to the cave, deeper into the woods, or towards the town. I don't know which would be better at this point. That cave isn't super resourceful, but for all we know the town is full of people hunting us, and the woods is _definitely_ hunter central. At least in town I know I had people who cared about me." _Of course, I don't know their names or where they live... I guess I can look up Summers in the phone book, but I'm gonna feel stupid asking random people if they have a blonde, short daughter between eighteen and twenty-four and is it possibly me._

"You're right. To town. But if you see people, don't stop, jus' fly."

"Those people you smelled- I see them. Two cars- down the hill and parked on the grass." Buffy pulled up short.

"Jus' hold my hand an' go right through. Any other way we try to cut around is gonna put us back high on the hill, might get cut off."

"It'd be really great to have another plan right now." Buffy hissed.

"It's the best I've got, but I'm open to suggestions, Slayer." He snarked.

"Don't get zapped, and don't get killed."

"Fair enough." He felt her fingers lace through his so hard he thought his knuckles would pop and they soared.

Willow saw them first. Two figures hurtling at her in the dusk, and she screamed. They were running full tilt, and she felt like she was standing in front of a charging bull.

"It's them!" Anya shouted joyfully, from her vantage point higher up.

"Don't slow down." Spike ordered.

"I won't if, you won't." She countered, and put on a burst of speed, heading straight past the redhead.

"Buffy! Buffy, wait it's okay!"

"Buffy, listen! Spike! Buffy, stop!"

The gray haired man's voice made her hesitate.

"Trap, Slayer, move." Spike yanked her along.

"But- I know him. I think I know him." Buffy tugged back.

"They could be workin' with the guys who zapped us!"

"Shh, gimme two minutes, and we'll stay ready to run. Any sudden moves and we'll motor."

The four relieved friends raced, breathless to the blonde pair. "Oh, thank the Lord." Giles removed his glasses and patted his brow with a handkerchief.

"We were so scared, I was so-" Willow bit her lip as Buffy and Spike stepped back as one when she made an attempt to hug Buffy. "Buffy?" She just received an answering stare.

"Buff? Don't you- know us?" Xander looked like his world was collapsing.

Buffy looked at Spike nervously. He eyed the sun and lowered his duster, still holding tightly to her hand, standing in the shadow of the hills. "I- have met all of you."

"What's wrong with them?" Anya demanded, marching forward. Spike vamped and snarled, stepping in front of Buffy protectively.

"Hey! Back off Fangface!" Xander took Anya in his arms and glared at Spike.

"Keep your mate away from my mate, then." Spike ordered coldly. Buffy coughed pointedly. "Girlfriend away from my girlfriend, sorry."

Three sets of eyes turned accusingly at Willow. "It wasn't me! I swear to God! Giles, look at me, I'll- I'll take a 'Thy Will Be Done' breathalyzer if they make one."

"Not to interrupt, but we had kind of a rough day. So-" Buffy swallowed, wishing she knew more about these people, like their names, not just emotions she vaguely associated with them. And had their emotions changed when they found out she wasn't normal? Did they oppose her relationship with Spike because of what he was? "Could you maybe tell us who the heck you are, and where the heck we are. Fast. We need to move."

Giles blinked, horrified. "You remember nothing."

"I remember plenty." Now that Buffy was face to face with him, she was sure he was not her biological father, but he elicited strong feelings from her. "I know you- the three of you-" she pointed to Willow and Xander as well, "care about me. I know my name and my boyfriend's name and I know we need to move fast. So please- introduce yourselves."

"I'm Willow." Her lip wobbled. "I'm your best friend and your college roommate."

"I'm Xander, I'm your other best friend! Since high school!"

"I'm Giles- the librarian at your old high school. We've remained in touch. You three were very special to me, and I to you." He held off on telling her that he was her Watcher. She obviously didn't remember many things, and he was not sure what happened and what part of her memory it impacted.

"I'm Anya. Xander's girlfriend. We came out to rescue you from the guys who put the chip in Spike's head!" She looked hopefully at them. "Can we rescue you yet?"

Spike and Buffy exchanged a look, and huddled. "It's your call. I don't remember these folks at all. Well, the gray haired one, a bit."

"It'd be really great to ask them one of those 'this proves you know us' questions. But they can say anything and it might be true- we don't know. We only have a few days worth of memories and a common knowledge bank to go on."

Meanwhile Giles was huddling with the Scoobies. "We have to get them out of here. Whatever happened to them, they're missing huge chunks of their memories apparently. And we've no idea the method, and no way to help unless we can get them to trust us. For the time being, I think it would less harmful if we went along with their version of events, and try not to upset them."

The groups faced each other again. "We don't think it's safe for you here. Buffy, do you want a lift back to your dorm?"

"Where does Spike go?"

"Well- uh- Spike's been staying with me for a few days. Since he got back."

"Back? Where've I been?"

"The commandos had you. They put a chip in your brain." Anya reiterated.

"Spike and I stay together. We could use a lift into town, thanks."

"Then, erm, we'll go back to my flat. Willow, Xander, Anya, would you run back to the dorms and get Buffy some clothes? Spike, you can borrow something of mine."

Spike and Buffy exchanged a glance and got into the battered backseat of Giles' car, unwilling to be separated. "Don't try anything funny." Buffy warned. Giles looked like she'd stabbed him in the heart. "Not that you would. I think. I'm sorry."

"No. No, you're right. Trust your instincts. Your instincts won't lie even if your memories are missing. Which I assume is the case?"

"Got it in one." Spike pulled Buffy closer to him, and they both kept their eyes riveted to Giles as he drove.

Giles tried to break the silence. "I'm sure you have questions."

"Where are we?" Buffy asked quickly.

"Sunnydale, a small town in southern California. The United States."

"General knowledge is workin'." Spike snapped. "Mostly."

"Are my parents in town?"

"Your mother is. Yes, you can call her if you'd like. Your father is in LA. You can call him, o-of course." Giles stammered.

"They're divorced? That sucks. I'm not going to call either of them yet. I- I don't know what I'd say." She swallowed and tried to force some perkiness into her voice for the sake of her betrothed. "What about Spike's parents?"

"They- they've passed on." Giles didn't know if that was the right thing to say or if he should have lied and said he didn't know them that well, or some other nonsense.

"Bloody hell. Brothers and sisters?" Spike looked stricken, and Buffy rubbed his leg soothingly.

"None you've ever mentioned. You're an only child, Buffy." He cleared his throat. This had been a bad idea. He had just told two fragile young- well, for all intents and purposes young- people that they had either no family or came from a broken home.

If Buffy didn't remember Joyce, he felt it was a safe assumption that she had no idea she was the Slayer. And despite Spike's vampire form showing itself when angered, and Xander's insult of "fangface" he might not be aware of what happened, or why Xander called him that. Giles sighed heavily. Wonderful. All they have is each other. The Slayer- and William the Bloody, Slayer of Slayers. And they don't know who they really are. _God, I need a whiskey. No- a cookie. I'll have to make do with a cookie, because I certainly need all my wits about me now._

Giles looked into the backseat. They were huddled together, both looking exhausted and fairly sad. No more talking for now, he decided. "You must be very tired. I'll let you rest."

"Thanks." Buffy whispered.

"Ta, mate." Spike pressed his lips to Buffy's dusty, sweating brow and closed his eyes.

Giles led them inside nervously. He kept waiting for a spark of recognition, anything, and nothing came. "Spike!" Buffy grabbed his arm, joy in her voice, and Giles looked hopeful.

"Yeah! Yeah, this is the place!" Spike swooped her up in a hug and they both groaned and squeezed their eyes shut against the pain as soon as he let her go.

"You recognize the flat?" Giles wanted to kiss them- yes, even Spike.

"This is where I popped the question to Slayer, right here." Spike gestured to the hardwood floor.

"Slayer? You call Buffy- Slayer?" Giles found this to be hopeful. Maybe her calling was ingrained so deeply inside her that she remembered it.

"Yeah. Always have, haven't I?" Spike challenged.

"Yes, yes, you always have." He took a step back. "How did you come to call her that?"

Buffy watched him struggle for an answer and got angry. This wasn't a game. They really didn't know their own stories, and twenty questions wasn't going to help. "Because I call him Spike. We're dangerous. We're tough when we need to be." She glared at Giles and he retreated.

"I should know why..." Spike shook his head, lines etching onto his sharp featured face. Buffy distracted him when she saw something else they could both remember. Right now, shared remembering was of the good and essential.

"Ooh, Honey, we sat over there- and we planned part of the wedding. Remember?"

"I do. There was a little- a list, we had a list, an' all." He turned hopefully to Giles. "Is it still here?"

"I haven't seen it." He said truthfully, voice constricted in despair, but trying to mask it.

"Oh, well. At least we know we're on friendly turf. You were telling the truth." Buffy gave Giles a genuine smile and he felt the worry lessen slightly.

"Sit down, relax. I'll get you something to eat, and drink, and then we'll figure out what to do. About your- amnesia."

Spike cleared his throat. "Giles- do you know what I like to drink?" He asked cautiously.

"Yes. Yes, I have something that will suit you." Giles replied in the same cautious tone. _If this turns out to be about Jack Daniels, I'm going to get my ruddy skull kicked in when I bring him a mug of blood._

Giles had been preparing through the night when he couldn't sleep. He had the first aid kit ready, although mercifully it seemed they hadn't suffered any external injuries. He had made a mountain of cold cut sandwiches, washed grapes, boiled eggs, and found the rest of Willow's cookies. In moments he had a spread put out for them. He put the coffee cup of blood down next to the bottle of water and said nothing, just watched.

"Oh, yes. That's the stuff." Spike drank it down in two long swallows, white throat working smoothly. Giles noticed Buffy watched this in fascination.

_Oh, hell. She's gone and fallen back in love with him. Oh, bollocks, truly in love, no one can watch someone drink blood unless they're infatuated._

As Buffy and Spike ate and gathered their strength, the gang arrived. Buffy smiled politely at all of them, aching inside because she couldn't remember much about them. She sensed these people were her true friends, and as hard as it was to be restrained, she didn't want to get burned if it turned out her senses mislead her. She had almost no recollection of Anya, even though with the other three she at least knew their faces.

Giles could see they all wanted to jump in and begin asking questions, try to work out a solution. But his first concern was Buffy's well being, and he supposed, Spike's. Plus, he needed a group strategy meeting. "You both look like you had a long, exhausting adventure. Do you want a little while to-to clean up, and then we can all sit down and talk about a course of action?" Giles offered.

"You're a good friend." Buffy kissed his cheek lightly and stood. "Thanks. Is it okay if I take a shower?"

"Oh course, by all means." Giles showed them the way to the bathroom, where towels were, and then said loudly, for everyone's benefit, "We'll just begin researching some possibilities now. In the dining room."

Buffy went in, and Spike and Giles walked back out. "Where are my things, if I stay with you?" Spike asked Giles with a wary look in his eye.

"You didn't have much, Spike, you escaped from those commandos and came here. If you just go up the stairs, in the bedroom is a wardrobe. Some items in the bottom drawer might fit you better than the rest.

"Alright, thanks." Spike walked quickly upstairs.

"Okay, thank God, because I need answers, and I need 'em now." Xander thumped the dining room table.

"This is no small thing! We must have patience." Giles thumped the table in turn.

Spike picked up some of the items and held them up to himself for size. He chose a pair of blue jeans and a gray tee shirt, nothing fancy, and headed back down the stairs, silent, trying to overhear. All he overheard was a vigorous argument about how magic was not the fault "this time". He shrugged and reckoned the gizmos that had zapped Slayer and him didn't feel magical at all, so at least these guys were on the right track.

He crept to the door, and heard the toilet flush. He lightly tapped, and Buffy's head cautiously poked out. When she saw it was him, her face lit up, and her hand shot forward, dragging him in. "Thought you might want privacy, but I wasn't sure."

"I don't. You're the only thing that feels really real." She explained. He locked the door after them and she turned on the shower. He stared at the tub for a long minute.

"I must've been a wreck when I got- when I changed." He whispered. "You kept me in this tub."

"I- no. I did?"

"I remember it. Chained up."

"No. No, Baby, I would never-"

"You must've had to. Maybe I couldn't control the vampire side. But I remember you feedin' me from a mug."

"See? I loved you. Even when... I don't remember what happened, Spike, but we can't change it anyway. I'm so sorry they hurt you, I'm sorry we had to restrain you." Her eyes welled up, and she collapsed in his arms.

"It's okay, Luv, it's fine now. We're still together, aren't we?" He tilted her chin and stroked back her tangled hair from her dirt streaked face. " Both our minds are muddled and there's a lot missin', a lot that doesn't add up. But it'll be okay. Let's go make some new memories here, huh?"

"Yes, please." She nodded, and slowly rolled her shirt over her head. With a blush she unsnapped her bra.

"I knew it." He smirked.

"Knew what?"

"You were beautiful."

"Mm, tell me some more." They hurriedly undressed and got in the shower. "We can't- you know- they're outside."

"I can still admire the view, can't I?" Spike ran his hands up the golden goddess in front of him.

"Can't we do a memory restoring spell?"

"No. We don't know what caused any of this. We need to just talk, let them tell us, and the main thing is to find out what's the last thing they remember and the farthest back they can remember. Then we'll have an idea of how much they lost. We also need to find out how much they've remembered since they were attacked. Then we can get some kind of time frame for how quickly, if at all, it's coming back."

"But shouldn't we tell them that they aren't a couple?" Xander hissed furiously. "And maybe we should do it now, since Buffy's in the shower and Spike's upstairs. They're less formidable one to four."

"No, we should just go along with whatever they tell us for the time being. Trying to force them to believe things they don't want to hear is only going to make them distrustful of us, and for all we know, the more information they try to process, the more damage they do their own natural recovery. As long as it isn't harmful to them, let's just accept what they tell us for the time being and help them work through things from there."

The three younger members reluctantly nodded, and Willow sighed as she stood. "Oh. Buffy didn't take the bag I packed for her to the shower. I packed her clothes and her shampoo and everything."

"I'll take it to her." Anya was closest to the bag on the floor, and she snagged it and carried it down the hall. "Buffy?" She tapped gently at the door. "I have your clothes."

"Oh. Thank you." Buffy sounded embarrassed, as if she suddenly realized she would be seen in a towel by a total stranger.

"I got it." Spike assured his lover. He stepped from the shower, making sure the curtain was tightly tucked around his Slayer, protecting his beautiful girl from prying eyes. He slung a towel around his hips and knotted it firmly before opening the door. "Thank you um-"

"Anya." Anya gawked at the sight of well formed ivory muscles and dripping wet manliness.

"Thank you, Anya. Slayer, your things are here." He shut the door in the stunned girl's face. She remained outside for a moment, shamelessly listening. "There's shampoo, an' a sponge thing. Raspberry body foam. D'you want all this gunk?"

"It's not gunk, and yes, I want it. I'll even share if you come scrub my back some more."

Anya returned to the dining room. Willow had her laptop in front of her now, and Giles and Xander had medical reference books open in front of them. "Was she okay with the outfits I brought?" Willow looked up.

"I don't know. She didn't say. She liked the bath things."

"Oh that's good."

"Yes, I'm afraid I don't have anything for ladies, really. I suppose I should keep some here in case we ever have a situation where we're stuck in the flat." Giles said absently.

"Sounds like a plan." Xander remarked, equally absently.

"Where's Spike got off to?" Giles looked up a the loft. "I never knew him to be so fussy about clothing. Aside from his precious coat."

"Oh. He and Buffy are washing each other erotically in the shower." Anya answered, peering over Willow's shoulder at a website devoted to amnesia.

Three absolutely horrified faces stared at her, slack jawed and bug eyed.

"And you were just letting them?" Xander demanded when he could finally speak.

"Well- you said to just go with it, not force them to make unpleasant discoveries unless it was going to hurt them." Anya explained. No one replied.

The silence flooded the apartment. Slowly, Giles came to stare down the hallway. The sound of running water was faintly audible. Nothing else. Soon all four of them stared down the hall at the closed bathroom door. Neither member of the blonde couple emerged and water still poured out.

"I'm confused." Anya broke the silence. "Is the joint showering considered harmful to themselves or not?"

"I need Scotch and cookies." Giles muttered and stalked off.

_To Be Continued..._


	3. Chapter 3

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Notes: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Dedicated to Idiosyncratic Delusions, Lithium Reaper, McPastey, ginar369, DLillith21, GoodfortheSoul, and LexieFang makes Fexie _

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_Thank you for your support! __**This story has been nominated at The Sunnydale Memorial Fanfiction Awards,**__ (located at /indexdothtml) in the following categories: _

_Best New Author, Best Drama, Best Pairing Conventional, Best Unfinished_

_**If you like it, please go vote for it!**_

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part III

"I can't believe Spike gets to see her naked. Mortal enemies should not see each other naked. Not if well-loved best friends can't!" Xander's sense of justice was piqued. Anya gave him a glare that reminded him his girlfriend had a thousand years of vengeance against men going on, and he hastily changed his tune. "Not that I need to see her- when I've got my own shower buddy."

"Do shut up." Giles muttered, mouth full of cookie. When Buffy was in her right mind, she would die of shame. And what if Spike and she went further than just washing? That bastard. He'd probably take advantage of her in a heartbeat.

Willow tried to be positive- seeing as she was blaming herself anyway, she might as well try and ease the pain by making the situation seem brighter. "It's not like they don't care about each other- in this state. A-and when they get their memories back, they'll just have to chalk it up to Hellmouth badness. They got over being engaged. I mean- they did before they lost their minds and thought they were engaged again."

"How did that happen anyway?" Xander demanded.

"My guess is they can only access short term memory. Things that happened in the last few days. In the last few days, they believe they were engaged."

"But they would also remember they were under a spell and it wasn't real." Xander hissed, lowering his voice and looking down the hall, waiting for the bathroom door to open and the pair to stride out.

"I have no answers." Giles sighed. "They may remember bigger events better than small ones, or maybe not details. The mind tries to assimilate new schema by-" Giles stopped himself before he could launch into cognitive development theory. "I'm not sure why." He concluded.

"I guess all we can do is ask them, and try to keep them calm." Willow soothed. Anya, who'd been uncharacteristically quiet, nodded slowly.

"I wouldn't tell them they aren't together, that's for sure. Spike wanted to bite me when he thought I was attacking his 'mate'. Memories right or not, they think they're a couple, a 'mated' couple, which means some commitment. And Spike and Buffy seem very passionate about their partners."

"Remember Spike and Drusilla?" Willow whispered nervously. "What he'd do for her?" She shivered.

"When Angel was in trouble, Buffy was slayer with a mission, 'this time it's personal' gal, that's for sure." Xander agreed.

"Do not mention Drusilla, or Angel, or Buffy's calling." Giles warned. A noise from down the hall stopped him from elaborating. "Act natural." He advised. Which of course meant everyone froze with stupid smiles on their faces.

Spike and Buffy came into the living room holding hands and looking apprehensive. Buffy spoke, her voice quiet and determined. "How do we fix this?" The four occupants already seated in the room gave her beaming smiles. "What?"

"That's just what Buffy would say." Giles nodded.

"I _am_ Buffy. I just don't know who the heck that is." She mumbled the ending, sitting on the floor. Willow immediately moved to the couch next to Giles so she could have a chair. With a small grin, Buffy rose and moved to the vacated seat, motioning for Spike to sit, and then she arranged herself in his lap.

"Alright- I've lost my memories, not my eyesight. Someone wanna tell me why I got the evil eye?" Spike demanded harshly. Xander in particular had glared at him for sharing his seat with Slayer.

"It's nothing." Giles said firmly.

"Don't think so, mate." Spike resisted the urge to shout. His headache had lessened enough to allow him to move without feeling like he was being hit with a sledgehammer on each step, but it still felt horrible, a tugging blackness that just made him want to close his eyes and not wake up.

"They don't approve of our relationship." Buffy said with an edge to her voice. "And if that's going to stop you from helping us, then I guess we'll just leave."

"Whoa, back the bus up!" Xander raised his hands in surrender before she could rise. "No one needs to go anywhere."

"So you'll keep your glares to yourself then?" Spike asked.

"No one here wants anything but for the both of you to get well quickly." Giles intervened. "I suggest we concentrate on that goal."

"Good plan." Willow chirped. "Are you guys still hungry? I can go get something while you talk?"

"I'm a might peckish." Spike admitted. He leaned his head back into the chair and surveyed them with sleepy eyes. The redhead made a little nervous grimace and went off. "So everyone knows?" He asked.

"That you're a vampire? Oh yes." Anya said cheerfully.

Buffy wanted to ask a million questions about that, about why they knew, and how did they feel about it, and how come Spike was good but others were bad and when had it all happened. But she didn't. She wanted her memory back and then she figured she'd know the answers herself. Spike, however wanted to ask at least one question.

"An' everyone is okay with that?" He asked suspiciously.

"Okay is a stretch. We deal." Xander explained.

"S'pose that's somethin'." Spike took a mug from Willow's hand when she returned and watched her back away._ Did somethin' to her. Scared her at some point. Don't know what right now, but I must've done._

Giles became businesslike once everyone was seated. He produced a legal pad and adjusted his glasses. "Tell us what happened last night."

Spike and Buffy exchanged a look. "We went out to do something. I was trying to help Spike find the guys that- hurt him." She said slowly.

"The commandos." Anya interjected.

"Thanks." Buffy wondered if this girl had been zapped, too. Her speech patterns seemed really weird, but then again, she must seem pretty weird herself.

"We found the place." Spike remembered that, a feeling of satisfaction, but no details. "It's in the woods, but if you asked me right now to lead you to it, I doubt if I could."

"Everything is a mess." Buffy added, rubbing her temples. Spike patted her back gently in a reassuring gesture. "They found us. They were coming out, and they found us."

"Were you hiding?" Giles tried to keep his questions to a minimum, trying to ask just enough to draw out relevant details.

"Were we?" Buffy turned to Spike.

"Seems logical. Although to be honest I don't remember a lot. I remember finding the place, big bunch of blokes with guns and- then zap. I don't know what happened to me, but I saw what they did to Slayer."

"I saw what they did to you. Some metal thing, right at the back of your neck, bottom of the skull. He was running and boom, this thing knocked him forward really far, but he kept going. I was impressed." She gave him a proud, possessive look, and he preened briefly before speaking.

"That's what they did to her, but we got away- somehow. Just kept runnin' and they had to slow down."

"That was us." Willow looked pleased with herself. "We were supposed to meet you, and when we found the area, there were these guys, but we ran a diversion." Giles gave her a look over the top of his glasses. "We didn't _plan_ to be a diversion, but we did kinda make one!" She pouted.

"Thanks." Buffy said sincerely. "I'm sure it helped."

"So you both were hit with the same type of weapon in the same spot. Did the commandos say anything? Did you hear them refer to it, call the weapon a specific name or say what it would do?"

"They said they wanted me. An' they called her my mate. Like she's an animal." Spike's lips curled in distaste.

"You kinda did the same thing earlier." Buffy pointed out in a mildly irritated voice.

"Yeah, but I'm sayin' it in a protective sort of way. Those boys were jus' wankers and I'd like to rip their arms off."

"Did they say you were his 'mate' before or after they attacked you? With the instrument, I mean."

"Ummm. Before. Maybe." Buffy closed her eyes. "I feel so stupid. I feel so useless and helpless and I hate this!" Her voice raised and she collapsed forward, head in her hands with a shudder of pain.

"Shh. Shh. Poppet, we're fine. We're fine now." Spike whispered soothingly. "We'll put it right, Slayer. Won't we?" He kept his voice soft as he cuddled Buffy into his lap, but his eyes pierced Giles', making it clear that he expected the older man to back his claim.

"We always figure something out, Buffy." Giles comforted. He gave her a second to collect herself, and then pressed on. "After you were attacked, you headed to the area we found you in this afternoon?"

"There's a cave up there. Kipped in that. When we woke up- it was worse."

"Not the pain," Buffy explained, "the memory loss. It was like once we slept, more and more stuff got erased."

_ "_Yeah, but then after we slept some more, it was a bit better. Pain is still in the barely livable zone, though."

"The first sleep erased, the second rest began to restore." Giles pressed his lips together. "That doesn't make a lot of sense."

"We're telling the truth." Buffy dared him to suggest otherwise.

"I know that." He rose and as one, Spike and Buffy rose, too, both staggering when they moved suddenly. "I'm not going to hurt you." He sounded suddenly close to tears. How could his beloved child- well, almost child, think he'd hurt her? Even if she didn't remember, how could it erase the trust they'd painstakingly tested?

Anya bit her thumb and clutched Xander's hand. "This is so awful. Poor Giles."

"Poor us!" Willow sniffled. "Buffy- I know you don't remember anything, but- but can't you believe us? We're on your side!"

"Slayer hasn't lived so long without bein' cautious." Spike's stance became less defensive. That's an odd thing to say, he realized. Buffy realized it as well, and gave him a puzzled look. He shrugged. "Dunno. Jus' know." She nodded, knowing exactly what he meant.

"Could I please look at your necks?" Giles asked. Reluctantly, Buffy turned, and felt gentle hands lifting her hair. She also heard feet shuffling and knew the others in the room were crowding behind her to look. Spike remained in front of her, and held her hand, eyes warily watching Giles' every move. "Singed hair. Even with-" he almost slipped and said "slayer healing " or "accelerated healing" but caught it in time, "even with time to heal, there's some evidence. Singed hair for one." He moved the hair away to expose her skin. "Starburst bruising. Electrical damage."

"The middle." Willow's voice was soft.

Buffy felt breath on her neck and Giles leaned in closer, peering hard. Spike stiffened and let out a little warning noise in his throat. "A puncture. Needle sized."

"An electrified needle? Welcome to mad scientist world." Xander shivered.

"It's like a taser. And an internal one. Probably supposed to knock out the victim physically and mentally. Bastards." He grit his teeth and tenderly smoothed her hair back in place.

"We're in agreement there." Spike hissed. He allowed himself to be subjected to the same exam, and his damage was more evident.

"Vampires need blood to heal." Anya explained. "You didn't have any for awhile after you got hurt, so you're healing more slowly.

"Worse bruising, deeper puncture. They weren't as gentle with him."

"They sure as hell weren't gentle with me, either." Buffy gingerly felt the base of her skull. "Can we get some aspirin? Or maybe a little morphine? Great, I know drugs, but not my address..."

"I would love to give you something for the pain, but I'm afraid drugs might react badly with whatever they did." Giles answered apologetically.

"We're tough. We'll be fine." Spike traced a fingertip over Buffy's mouth, drawing her lips into a smile. "There's my girl." She giggled once, softly.

Anya and Willow let out love struck sighs. Xander closed his eyes and prayed for strength. Giles polished his glasses and laid out his hypothesis.

"Based on what you said, I'm going to hazard that the first time you 'slept', you didn't _sleep_. You fell unconscious, possibly into a coma. The aftereffects of the injury. It shocked or triggered something in your brains that made it impossible to remain conscious for long. If you two weren't s-such strong individuals, you probably would have been knocked out immediately. As it was, you made it to safety, and you became comatose. The second time you slept, it was a natural, healing sleep. That's my conjecture. I could be completely wrong."

"But you're not usually- are you?" Buffy appraised him, a ghost of a smile on her lips.

"I'm wrong plenty. But as that's all we have to go on, that's the best hypothesis I can make."

"So the more they sleep, the faster they'll remember?" Anya suggested.

"I'm not sure. Can you tell me the oldest thing you remember before last night? Some event from weeks ago, years ago? O-or just tell us the event, and we may know how long ago it was." He turned his gaze to Spike, trying to give Buffy a rest from retelling.

"I've got bits an' pieces. I dunno my time line though. I know I've seen Slayer fightin' before last night. I remember bein' chained in that damn tub." He shifted uncomfortably, shoulders stiffening. Buffy stroked his hair in a petting gesture and he calmed himself. "I remember proposin' to Slayer. That's the biggest memory, the clearest I've got, an' it's full of holes."

"Proposal. That's two days ago." Giles said to the Scoobies.

"Two days ago?" Buffy bit her lip. "They erased everything from our lives before two days ago?"

"It might not be the same for you, individuals heal at different rates. And, Spike is-different- from you." Giles explained. "What's are _you _able to recall?"

"I have flashes, too. I- I know I've seen all of you- except Anya- sorry, I mean I know I've seen your face, but I don't feel like I know you. I remember Spike and I getting engaged, and then there was a big fight, with these...monsters. Then we had a fight. And then we made up before we went to fight these army guys."

"You-made up?" Xander asked hesitantly.

"Yesterday." Buffy stated with conviction. _We must have, we were working together. Maybe things weren't completely better, but we're on the way, And now, this crisis has brought us together. _Spike's fingers tightened on her knee.

"Where the hell was I?" Xander muttered and his girlfriend elbowed him sharply. "I mean- um- okay, things are patched up."

"So give or take, about two days." Willow summed up. "Um. Not to make either of you upset, but- but we were all around in the last couple days. Shouldn't you know us?"

"Sorry, Red, but neither of us could even remember each other's names at first. I couldn't even remember my own, William, an' Slayer couldn't remember her last name until this afternoon." Spike shrugged.

"You called me Red. You used to do that sometimes." Willow looked perkier.

"Maybe bits are comin' through. Or might be because your hair catches the eye." He smiled.

"I don't know why I don't remember you guys better. I'm sorry." Buffy sighed, feeling guilty.

"Don't apologize! It's not your fault, someone did this to you!" Willow punched a clenched fist into her open palm.

"An' when I find 'em, I'm gonna tear 'em a new place to breathe through." Spike snarled. Buffy gave him a warning stare. "Fine. Beat them to a bloody mess, but leave 'em alive?"

"That's my Spike." She leaned over and kissed him affectionately.

Giles, more to avoid looking at them kissing- and the kiss was moving from affectionate to sensual far too rapidly for his tastes- cleared his throat. "I imagine that Buffy and Spike remember each other the most clearly, because becoming engaged is a very- special thing." He choked out. "We were all present, but on the periphery. Therefore, we're in your minds, but not deeply ingrained. Yet."

Everyone nodded or made noises of agreement.

"Can we ask a few questions now?" Spike demanded.

"W-well, I think you'd best not tax yourselves, t-too much." Giles stammered. What if they asked something tricky? Frankly, wasn't everything they asked something tricky?

"Oh, come on! We don't know anything about ourselves! Of course we have questions!" Buffy sounded annoyed.

"Giles..." Willow put a soft hand on his elbow, wide eyes pleading. "Just let them ask. We'll _all_ answer the _best we can_." She said significantly. With a bemused frown, Giles nodded.

"How old am I?" Buffy asked.

"Eighteen" All of them said as one, and then tensed and looked at Spike, praying he wouldn't ask the same thing.

"Wow. I'm young to be engaged. H-have we known each other long?" She nodded to Spike.

"Two years. Off and on." Giles swallowed. Buffy sighed in content and leaned back lazily across the vampire's chest.

"Were we ever in gangs?" Spike asked, mind clicking painfully as he tried to recall the past and came up with nothing but gray and bursts of agony.

"In a matter of speaking." Willow murmured

"Rival gangs?"

"Oh yeah." Xander laughed, leaning heavily on the words.

"But we worked together before. Not just this time. Before." Buffy said firmly.

"You remember that?" Giles asked eagerly, leaning forward. That was over a year ago, if she could remember something that far back, maybe there was hope that bigger and bigger chunks of her memory would return rapidly.

"No. I know it. I _know_ it." She sounded frustrated. She tried to recapture the event she knew had happened, but all she got was sharp pain and a wave of red behind her eyes.

"_We_ know it, Pet." Spike joined in her firm declaration.

"I feel like crap." Buffy suddenly said, her brow furrowed.

"Don't press yourselves. I know it's hard, but- but just try to relax and I'm sure things will gradually return to your minds.

"Would ice packs help? Or heating pads?" Anya stood up. "For the pain obviously, not the brain damage."

Spike shot her a poisonous look at the term "brain damage", but Buffy seemed grateful. "Ice would be awesome." Anya beamed and bustled away.

"Perhaps just a few more questions, and then more sleep." Giles urged.

"I got one." Spike leaned forward. "Do I have a motorcycle?"

"No. Some ancient, black rust bucket of a car." Xander disillusioned him. Spike looked saddened and Buffy noticed that. She looked at her best friend reproachfully and then put her arms around her vampire lover's neck.

"That makes sense. You'd want something with a backseat."

"Mmm, Slayer." He kissed her hungrily.

"Oh, God! Willow! Are you sure this isn't some kind of leftover from-" Xander's tirade was silenced by Willow's sharp kick to his ankle.

"What are you sayin'?" Spike shifted Buffy from his lap and gingerly stood.

"Just- you two- aren't big with the kissage." Xander looked green at the sight of them so entwined.

"That's a lie." Buffy's voice shook. "No, I know that we're 'big with the kissage'. I remember the night of our engagement, and you weren't here for most of it. This is the man I love and I show it!"

"Damn right you do." Spike's chuckle was decidedly sexual, and his hands strayed possessively over her hips. What's more, she seemed perfectly comfortable with his intimate touches on her body. The lower half of her body.

Giles blanched. _Dear God. I suppose vampire healing and slayer strength kicked in while they were in that cave. Bloody hell, she'll stake him when she finds out they were physical, if they were._ He noticed Buffy's fingers comfortably slid into Spike's belt loops, pulling his hips closer to her rear. _Yes, I suppose they probably were. Spike will be dust- even if it wasn't his fault. Dear Lord, what a mess. _

"Why are we all standing?" Anya returned with two baggies of ice cubes wrapped in tea towels.

"I think we're all overtired. You've had a terrible ordeal, and all of us have been up most of the night and out all day searching for you." Giles placated, shoving his revulsion aside.

"You guys searched for us? That's sweet." Buffy took the ice pack gratefully and applied it to the nape of her neck. Spike did the same.

"That's what we do, Buffster." Xander grinned. "Come hell or high water, and I mean that-" He silenced himself. "I really mean that." No way did he feel up to telling her that they'd actually_ literally_ went after her in "hell or high water" situations, emphasis on the hell part.

"Thank you all. So much. I know- well, I'm starting to know, that you guys are good friends. Not just good guys, but good pals."

"We're a family." Willow opened her arms, and Buffy gave her a quick, polite hug. Willow smiled. "Better than nothing." That made Buffy relax and the feeling that she could trust these people intensified.

Willow looked at the clock. "Wow. It's getting late. Giles, I don't want to bail, but I already missed classes today, and if I don't get caught up-"

"It's fine, Dear, you've been most helpful." He patted her back. "Oh. I suppose this might present a problem..."

"What's that, Giles?" Xander inquired.

"Buffy missing classes."

"Whoa, I'm sorry, but I can't do college classes. I- I wouldn't even know what I'm taking!" Buffy protested. "I don't know where to go, o-or anything!"

"A few absences shouldn't mess you up too much, right?" Xander turned to Willow.

"Nope, a few days off, not so bad. A-and finals are in two weeks, then we don't have class until after Martin Luther King Day."

"But- what if my memory isn't back in two weeks? And what month is this? I don't know anything I learned in my classes!" Her own shrillness sent her down to her knees, her head actually feeling as though it were contracting. Beside her, Spike went down, dropping his ice pack, and putting his hands on her shoulders.

"Slayer...be calm. And for God's sake...don't fuckin' raise your voice." He hissed.

" It's December, Buffy. And, umm, we'll work it out." She turned to Giles. "She can probably get some kind of medical excuse note." Willow sounded extremely unconvinced.

"Aren't you a master hacker?" Anya said as if it were obvious. "Go in to the school records, file a temporary medical exemption from classes, and get her finals as take homes. Then we'll all help do them. She'll probably do better that way, anyhow." Anya turned to Buffy and whispered, in what she was sure was a comforting voice, "You're really smart, but you don't seem to study very well. This might actually boost your GPA."

"Great. I'm a short blonde idiot with a vampire boyfriend and freakish strength. And a really stupid name." She began to sniffle.

Spike took his eyes off the kneeling form. "Look, she's obviously not herself. Slayer doesn't give way like this, does she?"

"Not usually. But this is pretty major." Xander knelt. "Buff? You're awesome. Smart and beautiful and this will get better. I promise. Because I'll make it better. We all will." He patted her hand awkwardly. "As for stupid names- how'd you like 'Xander'? Huh? I mean, welcome to unusual name central. Spike. Willow. Xander. Giles. Anya's the most normal sounding one."

"And that's something you don't hear often." Willow mumbled, ignoring Anya as she stuck out her tongue.

"Thanks. Thanks, sorry, it's just really, reeeeeally annoying." Buffy sat up straighter but made no move to get off the floor. "And I feel like a cement mixer is in my head and is coating my brain in a sticky wet swirl. All heavy and gray and blech! It sucks. Major sucks."

"You'll feel better after you get some rest."

"We'll drive you and Will to the dorms." Xander offered her a hand up.

"What about Spike?" Buffy refused the proffered hand.

"He'll sleep on the couch." Giles soothed. Neither looked in the slightest soothed. They stared him down, unblinking, blue and green eyes fixed solemnly on his face. It was rather creepy and he tried not to shiver or laugh in his mounting hysteria.

"Don't think she an' I care to be separated jus' now." Spike said in a silky voice. A voice that was soft and more dangerous than any shout. This was a feral creature sniffing for the kill, not merely blustering.

"It's just overnight." Willow wheedled. "You should have someone stay with you. In case those guys are still hunting you." She felt guilty bringing that up, felt like it was a scare tactic, but she also felt like it was a legitimate concern.

"More reason for Spike and I not to be apart. We can help protect each other."

"No, Buff, he really can't. Spike had a run in with those commando guys before. He- he has a chip in his head. He can't hurt people."

Spike kept remembering and forgetting that piece of information. He shrugged all the same, figuring he could deal with his frustration later. "So? I'm fast, and I'm strong. An' vampires scare people, whether or not we intend to bite. Point is, she wants me with her, an' Slayer_ gets what she wants_." The silky tone was back, and magnified with each syllable.

"I'll just sleep here with Spike. I'll take the floor and-"

"No. I'll take the floor, you take the couch." Spike interrupted her.

"They both need sleep. Like actual good sleep in an actual bed." Anya methodically weighed the options. "Xander's place is out. His basement has a bed, but he's in it. Giles has one bed and that's for him, Willow could sleep here and Spike and Buffy go sleep in the dorm, but Buffy won't remember anything about navigating campus or her dorm mates, and that could go all wrong. My apartment is out because, well, it's mine. That leaves a hotel or Mrs. Summers."

"Joyce would not cope well with this." Giles pressed a hand to his eyes.

"I don't want to shock my mom. I mean- I feel like I don't even know her. I- I wouldn't recognize her if I bumped into her." Buffy admitted guiltily.

"Not your fault, Slayer, you know that." Spike said harshly, and helped her to her feet with a firm, steady tug on her shoulders.

"Then it's a hotel. That should work the best anyway. No one who knows Buffy's relationship with us will find her at our places if they decide to look for her. I don't know about where they'd look for Spike, but not in a hotel, that's for sure." Anya said matter of factly.

"Can't she an' I just go back to my place?" Spike asked reasonably.

"We could- if we knew where your place was. And if it was uninhabited. But you had a- a part of your gang with you sometimes. Plus, those commando guys might know where you live." Xander explained.

"You don't know where I live?"

"We didn't even know you were back in town until two months ago."

Spike and Buffy exchanged a look. "Where was I?"

"You've traveled between Sunnydale and other parts of the world for the last year." Giles improvised.

Seeing Buffy's crestfallen look, Willow added her own spin. "But he always comes back, always looking for you." She was rewarded by Spike and Buffy letting out a sigh and stepping closer together. _Oh great job, Willow. Build the romance picture. She's gonna die when her memory kicks all the way in..._

"Then a hotel it is." Spike nodded and Buffy nodded back. The four others in the room exchanged a panicked look. "Now what is?" He asked in a tone of barely controlled exasperation.

"Is there some reason we shouldn't go to a hotel together?" Buffy asked icily.

"It- might not look proper." Giles finally managed to say.

"Oh, Giles... that's really- old-fashioned of you, but nice." The ice was replaced with mild humor.

Spike gave a nod of grudging respect to the graying man. "I see your point, an' I don't wanna get up your nose about it, but we _are_ gettin' hitched. Think we can get used to sharin' a bed. Again, I mean obviously -" Spike ended his train of thought when Buffy gave him a blushing, wide eyes gaze. "I promise to be a gentleman." He concluded. _Well, I promise to be a man. And gentle. She an' I hurt too much to be less than gentle. That's "gentlemanly" enough._

"I'm paying for separate rooms." Giles shook his head. "It's no trouble."

"Giles." Buffy took his arm. "Save your money." Spike smirked in the background.

After Buffy's all too clear words, the gang couldn't see any way to make their objections clear without angering either of the blondes, and each time they had aggravated them, the consequences were visibly painful. They dared not provoke more emotional upheaval, since they couldn't see what it was doing on the inside of their friend's head. Or Spike's, but no one felt strongly about that at the moment.

"I'll get my coat. I must have a wallet in there."

"I didn't have a wallet on me. Do I have a purse?" Buffy turned to Willow.

"Oh, yeah. It should be in the bottom of the bag I brought over for you." Buffy nodded and began to dig in the duffle. Spike flipped open his wallet and found a few bills. Not enough for a room. Great.

Buffy caught his eye. She held up a gold credit card. "Am I right in guessing that my parents are either rich or gave this to me for emergencies?"

"The second one." Anya pointed out. "You don't have a job, you live on your college tuition- that's room and board, and your allowance."

"That sucks. That's gonna have to change."

"Your studies come first." Giles bit his tongue to keep from mentioning that slaying and her sacred duty came first as well, and between the two she had no time to work a day job.

"Anyone know what_ I_ do?" Spike asked.

"You're a- business man. Self-employed." Willow originally wanted to say "thug" but dismissed it. "You kind of organize... things."

"Bad things, huh?" Spike read her hesitation and gave a lopsided smile. "Haven't been up to it lately, have I?"

"Not since you- reconnected- with Buffy, no. And then your injuries. With your _condition_ and the injuries, you've been unable to work and your funds are little low, I imagine." Giles said delicately.

"Stoney broke. No matter. Somethin'll turn up." He sighed. "Oh, one more thing. How do I get blood? Donated?"

"Bought. Butcher's. I'll send you with enough bags for tonight and tomorrow morning, but I will pick you up at your hotel first thing, and bring you here, so we can devise a plan. Possibly take Buffy to a doctor." Giles wasn't going to leave them alone for a second longer than necessary. He already planned to take a room in the hotel himself, just to make sure that if Spike's memory somehow returned suddenly he was nearby.

"What time?" Buffy asked, yawning.

"Eight?"

"Eight?" She whined.

"Oh dear, still the same old Buffy. Nine thirty, and not a moment later. And I suggest you rest. As in sleep. And refrain from any other types of strenuous activity." Giles fixed a steel eyes stare on Spike.

"No strenuous activity." Spike nodded once. _Won't strain me at all. Do it nice an' easy, like we did this mornin'. Don't have to do it like that, if it's too much for her. Berk thinks jus' 'cause I'm some kinda creature of the night that I don't know how to look after the girl. I know how to look after my woman. Jewels, travel, beautiful dresses, beautiful people to eat- whoa, that must be for me, that last one. _Buffy's voice broke into his suddenly confused thoughts.

"I'll get my bath stuff. Be right back." She moved down the hall on unsteady legs.

"Hey, Giles, should she be moving like that? Buffy's usually- like a gazelle!" Xander watched her go and whispered worriedly.

"Whatever they did impacted a lot of facets. Pain and exhaustion are probably making her feel clumsy and uncoordinated. She should eat something. You both should." Giles looked at Spike and the vampire agreed.

"I'll make some more sandwiches. A-and heat up your drink." Willow ran off to the kitchen.

"And then we really should go, G-Man." Xander said regretfully. He drew Giles into the dining room and whispered, "What if his memory comes back before Buffy's? Do you have any idea what he might try?"

"Yes. He might try any number of things, but anything painful or harmful will trigger the chip. I've given as many hints as I can about them not sleeping together, I don't know what else to say that won't offend them! If I upset her, seem against her relationship with the 'man she loves' she'll turn from us and there goes any opportunity to help her. We cannot lose the Slayer. And more importantly of course, we cannot lose Buffy."

"I don't like this."

"Nor do I!" Giles gave a falsely cheerful smile as Buffy returned from the bathroom with her toiletries. "Eat something before I run you to the hotel?"

"Okay." Buffy agreed, and went to perch on Spike's lap again. He and Anya were talking quietly but animatedly about college and weddings. Willow entered the living room, and Xander pulled Giles further out of ear shot.

"Giles, she's going to be so upset, and hurt when she finds out she - well- about whatever she did or will do with him!"

"Xander, short of chaining her up, I can think of nothing that can actually stop Buffy when she wants to do something. If I chain her up, she'll break free eventually and probably beat all of us and never trust us again. If I drug her, or him, who knows what I would be interfering with inside their already traumatized brains? The best I can do is book a room in the same hotel, as close to theirs as possible, and intervene if I hear struggling or scuffling."

"What if you just hear mood music and moaning?"

"That counts as scuffling and I'm sure I'll believe they're being attacked." Giles replied with secretive smile.

"God bless you." Xander wrung his hand fervently and marched back into the room with a slightly less tense air about him. "Let's hit the road, ladies. Buff, good to have you safe and sound, and I bet tomorrow you'll be talking my best friendly ear off."

"I'd like that." Buffy waved goodnight to the three people who were leaving.

"Night." Spike called, mildly offended that no one regarded him.

"Oh, good night." Willow hastily remembered her manners, feeling weird that she was thinking of manners in terms of Spike. Anya gave him an enthusiastic farewell, Xander said a terse goodnight, gave Giles a long look and left.

Giles nervously packed some provisions for the duo remaining, including an impressive number of weapons and sent Spike upstairs to borrow a suitcase and pick out some more clothes from the bottom drawer of his wardrobe. Once he disappeared into the loft, he beckoned Buffy into the kitchen.

"What's up?" Buffy asked, eyes moving all the time. Part of Giles was proud that her Slayer instinct remained intact, that she was always on guard. Part of him wanted to scream with frustration, because she was using the caution on him, not the irritating peroxide blonde upstairs.

"Buffy, I just want to remind you- I'm not trying to tell you how you feel, or what you should do," _oh, now that's a lie_, he huffed inside his head, "but don't let Spike pressure you to do things that you're not ready for. Things you might want to wait to do until you have more of your memory back." He said significantly.

Buffy narrowed her eyes. "Is there some reason you think I shouldn't spend the night with Spike?" She cut through the rigamarole.

"You two- have some issues to work out, perhaps?" He hated being tactful at this point. But saying "Don't have sex with Spike" was beyond his powers of speech at the moment.

"I _told _you, we made up. I don't need my memory back to know he loves me and I love him, even if we have some 'issues to work out'. I also know that's why I trust _you_- even though you're really making me feel uncomfortable when you tell me not to trust the one person who kept me from going insane and being scared when we were in trouble, the person I remember the best."

"Then there's nothing left for me to say except get in the car and I'll take you to a hotel." Giles smiled stiffly, proud of her backbone, and sick to his stomach at the same time.

Spike came down with a frown, holding a small black bag. "Not that I'm not grateful, but we're not built on the same lines. I'm gonna look like I'm swimmin' in some of these togs."

"You'll look fine." Buffy cooed, shouldering her back and noting it felt heavy and clunked woodenly. She peered inside. "Stakes and bow and arrows?"

"Crossbows. If you're attacked, fight back." Giles hoped she'd know he meant in the case of either her "fiancé" or the commandos.

"On it. An'-" Spike reached into his duster and pulled out a long switchblade "seem to have my own weapon of choice, as well."

"Oh good." Giles commented drily.

On the ride to the local Holiday Inn, Giles rambled out a constant font of information, things they should do- not invite people in, stay in after dark, not walk anywhere, order room service and not venture out if they wanted something, call if they needed things. Once in the car park he pulled a piece of paper from the glove box and wrote down all the relevant phone numbers and addresses he could think of.

Spike and Buffy stayed quiet, absorbing this litany and then walked in to the small hotel after waving goodbye to Giles and promising to be in the lobby on time the next morning. Giles pulled away- promptly moving to the side lot, and deciding to wait fifteen minutes before going in.

Once inside, Spike looked down at his petite companion. "Not too impressive, this." Spike looked askance at the place. "Don't think we're in a high society town."

"No kidding." Buffy looked at the interior of the small, three story hotel. "Oh well. I think it's the best choice out of all the options, and way better than a hard stoney floor." She stumbled slightly and he supported her. "I'll feel better when we're locked in someplace."

"Know what you mean." Spike kept his head swiveling (which bloody hurt), constantly feeling like they were unsafe as long as they were in the open.

"We'd like a room, please." Buffy slid the gold card from her wallet to the clerk.

"Fill this out." The clerk responded automatically and handed them a registration form.

"Great." Buffy muttered. She didn't know her address, car make, phone number, etc. Spike nudged something into her hand. The list from Giles. She smiled and swiftly wrote down Willow's information, knowing it was hers as well. Some things, such as car, she left blank, but the clerk seemed thoroughly disinterested and passed them a room key after scanning the card. Buffy signed the slip, very afraid that her signature might not match the one on the card. But the clerk said nothing, looking at them and their simple luggage and deciding they didn't need a porter's assistance.

"Have a good night."

"Thanks."

The couple found their way to the room, a third floor efficiency, not terribly attractive, but clean. "Bed looks amazin'." Spike groaned with longing, and dropped his borrowed bag on the floor. "I haven't slept in a proper bed in..." He frowned. "A good while."

"It's nothing fancy but I am soooo looking forward to that." Buffy eagerly sized up the amenities and quickly put the blood and sandwiches that Giles had packed in the small counter top fridge. Spike shut the faded curtains and painfully started disrobing.

"Whatever they shot us with did a number, huh?"

"I can't wait to be back to normal. Well- what passes for normal." She yawned. She wandered into the bathroom and discovered that Willow had even packed a toothbrush for her. Another plastic wrapped one waited on the sink edge along with a scattering of complimentary toiletries. "I'll be ready for bed in a minute."

"Take your time." He slid the last of his clothes off and laid down on the bed with a relieved sigh.

Giles looked at his watch and heaved a reluctant sigh as he got out of his small battered Citroen. With his luck, he'd go into the lobby and they'd still be sitting there. Or worse, they'd realize he had no luggage and turn him away as a bad risk- if people still did that these days. But it just would be his luck. The day had certainly been full of unpleasant surprises. "I'd like a room, please." He asked once he reached t he front desk.

"I'm sorry, Sir. No vacancy."

For a moment, Giles just stared, flummoxed.

"There's a Comfort Inn if you drive up a mile towards the beach."

Giles remained numb. "Pardon?"

"There's no vacancy, but I can call the Comfort Inn and make a reservation for you."

"Why- I just saw a couple get a room." He protested.

"Yes, the last one. We have a reduced number of rooms, the first floor rooms are being renovated. Would you like me to call the Comfort Inn, Sir?" Clearly the clerk thought this man was mentally deficient.

"Erm. No. Thank you." Giles pushed out of the lobby with a bowed head. He could spend the night sleeping in the car and guessing which room belonged to Buffy but not actually be able to hear anything, and very possibly get arrested for loitering as well. Or he could go home and sleep for the first time in over twenty four hours. He decided that Buffy would kill Spike with her inborn slayer instincts if he got out of line, and if he didn't get out of line, he wouldn't be able to separate the two of them anyway. He started the car and puttered into the night.

Buffy realized Willow hadn't packed pajamas and she rebelled at the thought of putting on any of the pretty tops that were included in her luggage. Wearing nothing but panties and with her arms crossed over her bust, she walked back into the bedroom. A very, very naked Spike, which she had already seen but was still getting used to, passed her with an affectionate kiss and went to brush his teeth and wash his face.

_Am I doing the right thing? What if Giles is right? What if we have serious, major issues that we should really work out before we get more involved? _ Buffy pulled the sheet over herself and sat up, staring at nothing with wide eyes.

"What's wrong, Luv?" Spike asked as he came back out.

"Do you remember us fighting? Ever?"

"Yeah. I mean, I know we've fought. Don't have - well, no, I do have a cloudy image of you hitting me in the nose." He smirked.

"Good times." She smirked back, trying to fight down the arousal she felt when she looked at him walking toward the bed. _God, he is put together just right, big in all the right places, tight and muscle-y in the chest, slender at the hips... _She shut her eyes to clear her lustful thoughts. "What if- when we get our memories back, we can't get past stuff? What if we-" she whispered the last words, some gnawing fear taunting her, making her afraid all her worries were true, "end up hating each other?"

Spike sat on the bed, one finger sliding along her chin to make her eyes meet his. "Now, why would two smart people like us let the old things control our lives if we want to change, huh, Pet?"

"We don't know what the old things will end up being." She caught his hand and held her cheek against its comforting coolness.

"No. But- they can't be that bad, can they? I mean, here we are. No one's hurt. Well-_ we_ didn't hurt each other."

"And if we did in the past, we won't now? Anymore?"

"Of course not." Spike's thumb stroked her under eye, tilting her head gently up to meet his lips. "We just go with what we feel now. When we get back in workin' order, we'll keep the new memories about you an' me, an' deal with the old ones, yeah?"

"Yeah. Whatever is in the past, we can deal with if- if it was bad. All I know is, I love you."

"Love you, too, Slayer." Spike reached over and turned the lights out.

"I'm sorry it hurts." She murmured, her head throbbing. He smiled to show he felt the same pain.

"No worries." He pulled her close, feeling her heartbeat against him, her warmth sinking into him, making him relax for the first time in hours.

She cuddled into his arms, feeling a contentment wash over her, eating away the fear and worry. Completeness. Rightness. "You're the only guy whose ever been with me more than once." She said suddenly.

"Hmm?"

"Yeah. I feel it- like- this is a big deal. That other guys- it was once and over. Not that I'm a slut- I hope."

"Sure you're not." He rubbed her back.

"There were guys. I don't know them. I just know _about_ them... I kind of- well, maybe- I thought you were my first." He'd felt so perfect with her, and he was the only one she could remember. Of course, that memory was from the time they were in the cave, not previously.

"I guess not. Doesn't matter though, not really. You weren't mine either. Don't know who she was, but I know that you feel different from her. Warmer." He closed his eyes. "What about these blokes then? You worried about them?"

"They didn't stay with me after. That's all. It's like a sense memory. That you, being with me, close like this, makes me feel safe, and happy. And that you're the only one who was with me like this, more than one time."

Spike felt his arousal nudging his pain out of the way. "But you can only remember the once, right?"

"Right." She blushed.

"Then we better make it twice, just so you know it, you really have proof in your tangled little mind." His hand was soft on her shoulder, pushing her from her side to her back.

"But your head-"

"Shh." His kisses were softer, getting more insistent, until her mouth opened up and she was kissing him back, fighting away the throbbing in her head in favor of the throbbing low in her stomach and spreading between her thighs. "Not if it hurts. But- this doesn't hurt you, does it?"

"No. God, no, Spike." She braced her hands on his shoulders as he slowly, gingerly moved on top of her. Together, they nudged her underwear from her body, and kicked it down to the bottom of the bed.

"I promised Giles I'd be a gentleman." He informed her.

"You keep your promises." She smiled ruefully. "So this doesn't exactly seem like you're behaving."

"Ahh, see, there are many ways to interpret words. I promise-" he kissed her neck, "to be", he pressed his torso down on hers, "a very", her legs parted and her feet brushed the back of his thighs as she curled herself around him, "gentle man."

Her moan rippled the air when he pressed into her, her tightness strangling him and taking away the air he held in his unbreathing lungs. "Slayer." He moaned in return.

"Spike. Ohh, you feel so good." She let her head fall back and just watched him move through half-lidded eyes, hands roaming him desperately.

"Not as good as you, Baby." He purred, rocking gently. He was flat on top of her, knowing her strength could bear his weight. He rested his head to hers, keeping them immobile as possible.

She guessed she shouldn't be surprised that he was doing this so perfectly. He had been the most affectionate lover she'd ever had, she remembered their constant hugging, pawing, kissing on the night of his proposal. Some part of her thought she should expect this tough-talking man to take her hard and fast. Instead, both times, he'd been amazing at making sure she felt comfortable and wonderful.

"Good, Luv?" He didn't know exactly how he knew to hold them still, but just moved his pelvis with hers, rolling their hips in a gentle tidal movement until he felt her shuddering softly around him.

"Really- really good." She gasped.

"Wait 'til you're better. I'm gonna have you climbin' the walls. So many things I'm sure we did, can't wait to do again." He murmured in her ear.

"It's always good with you." She said with perfect conviction. "How- how do you know- how to do this, make me feel like this, without moving a muscle?"

He didn't tell her that somehow his body had gotten accustomed to making love with a certain reserve. Like his last lover had been very sick, very frail, couldn't be hurt. Gentle was one of his "settings". Instead, he gave her the lion's share of the credit. "It's in _your_ muscles, Baby. I jus' keep hittin your sweet spot. Plus-" he slid a hand down and rubbed her pink bead, exposing it more, and then pressing himself back down. The increased friction in her nerve cluster sent her into an internal paroxysm of pleasure. " -I have your pretty little pleasure button trapped between a rock-" he shifted inside her, "and a hard place." He pushed his abdominal muscles down more firmly.

Every rocking motion now ground her clit to his smooth skin, no longer cool, heating up and slick with her juice. "I love you." She hissed and arched.

Her muscles surged onto him, dragging him inside like some primal force and he exploded, a complete surprise to him. "Holy shit." He gasped, collapsing on top of her, arms flailing at her head.

She laughed softly. "Gotcha."

"Got me." He laughed agreeably. "Love you, Slayer."

"Love you, Spike." He moved to disentangle himself and she held him on top of her. "No. Stay? On me? In me?"

"I'll squash you, Luv."

"No you won't. Please? I- I don't want to feel alone."

"You are never gonna be alone again. Even if it's only ever you an' me, you won't be alone." He growled, low and threateningly in his chest. For some reason, that only comforted her. He settled down on his pink, fleshy pillow, kissing her lips and then forehead. "Sleep, Slayer. I'll be with you come the mornin'."

For the first time in her life, Buffy knew absolutely that such would be the case.

_To be continued..._


	4. Chapter 4

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Notes: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Dedicated to Idiosyncratic Delusions, Lithium Reaper, McPastey, ginar369, DLillith21, GoodfortheSoul, and Safire Blade_

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them. _

_Thank you for your support! __**This story has been nominated at The Sunnydale Memorial Fanfiction Awards,**__ (located at /indexdothtml) in the following categories: _

_Best New Author, Best Drama, Best Pairing Conventional, Best Unfinished_

_**If you like it, please go vote for it!**_

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part IV

"Nothing, Ma'am, no trace. No protein signatures were left, no bodies indicating feeding, no ash, no dust, no skin or blood traces, not even a clear path. There were hairs from the sight of the incident, but they were believed to be lost during the initial incident not in the failed capture." Finn made his report. He was not in fatigues, he was in his "TA suit", a polo shirt and khakis. Professor Walsh was still in her lab coat and wore a pantsuit underneath, a cross between her Initiative wear and her lecture dress. It was seven in the morning. Hostile Seventeen and his mate had been lost for over thirty six hours and the trail was cold.

"Gates says civilians compromised the field."

"Yes, Ma'am, more than three, so we allowed them unrestricted movement. They weren't in the immediate area." Finn nodded, privately annoyed with Forrest for bringing that up. It was protocol, keep a low profile, do not engage civilian attention, and more than three civilians meant at least one person was likely to notice something, even if the others didn't. What did he want him to do, shoot innocent people down so he could climb over the bodies and hunt for some neutered vamp?

"This isn't like you, Riley. I expect better results."

"Yes, Ma'am."

Maggie heaved a sigh. "Are you aware of the names of the four civilians?"

"I know one of them. She's a student here. She's in your class, actually."

"Human?"

"Very clearly so."

"Damn. It wouldn't hurt to check it out. Her and the three others."

Riley felt a wriggle of disgust in his stomach. He didn't like spying on people, that wasn't in his job description. If he wanted that sort of thing he would have been in the CIA, not the Initiative. Demons were scum, and people needed to be protected from them. People as people shouldn't come into the scope of his job- at least he wished that was the way things went. "I'll handle it myself, Ma'am."

"Yes, you will. Only you. I'm tired of blunders."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Dismissed."

"Thank you, Ma'am." Riley left.

"Hey." Spike rolled over and found a sleepy, pink, warm body huddled beside him. "Slayer?"

"Hi." She opened her eyes weakly.

"Still dancin' with hobnailed boots inside our heads, yeah?" Spike whispered. She smiled wearily. "Hungry?"

"No."

"Memory?"

"Willow cried a lot lately. And these commando guys- we've been searching for information for longer than two days, I guess. You?"

"Bathtub. Chains. Giles. Wheatabix arguments and somethin' about turkey dinners."

"And we- I was- rude to you. No, mean. Really awful."

"I deserved it. Don't know why exactly, but I know you had a reason." He had hoped she wouldn't remember that part, the sniping. It made her look so sad.

"Do you forgive me?" Her voice trembled.

"Yeah, of course I do!" He raised himself up on an elbow and stroked the sleep matted hair back from her face. "The big thing is- you gonna be able to forgive me? For whatever it was I did?"

"I don't know what it was." She murmured sorrowfully.

"Let's assume it was the worst thing I could ever do. Could you forgive me?"

"Without knowing what really happened?" Buffy squeaked. Spike winced and looked at her reproachfully. "Sorry. Volume." She thought for a minute. "You're saying forgive you for anything horrible you might have done, no matter what it was, even if I don't remember it?" That didn't sound like her. But on the other hand, she hadn't been sure of what she was like lately. What if she was an unforgiving bitch monster, always holding grudges? Would that make her happy? Probably not.

"I dunno, Slayer." Spike sighed and rolled back, shifting uncomfortably as his groin woke up to her presence beside him. "I do know that I hate feelin' like you an' I are goin' around corners blind. Never knowin' what's gonna smack us in the face when our memories come back. In my mind, I'd just rather look at what we have now, decide it's worth it, and wipe the slate. Don't even need to know what's on it, 'cause I'd rather have you with me like this. You're the one thing I remember well. Figure that means you're important."

"I know what you mean." She lay in silence for awhile. "You know- that's a lot to ask of anyone."

"I think you're right. I also think I'm a pushy sort of bastard." Spike smirked.

"I think I believe that." She smiled faintly. "I don't think I've been a very happy person lately. Just- you know. One of those know it but don'ts? The happy memories all come from you and me, and looking forward to being your bride."

"We can do it whenever you want. Pop down to the local church." Spike shrugged.

"You're really not afraid of commitment, are you?"

"Should I be?"

"Ha, if I knew, I'd tell you." She uttered a short, harsh laugh. "But, no. I think I want to wait until I can least remember my parents. I'm sure they'd want to be there, especially if I'm an only child."

"Fair enough. I'm not goin' anywhere. Well- if I am, didn't Red say I always come back to you? An' now we're 'betrothed', I'm stayin' in town, alright?"

"Very yes." She moved to put her head on his chest. "Even being all messed up in my head, I feel safe and happy with you." She confessed in a ghost of a whisper.

"It's the same for me, Slayer. An' you know somethin'? I don't think I've been too bloody happy lately myself. But you changed that."

"You're a pushy bastard, but I think you're smart." Buffy nodded once, controlling her head carefully. "I think I wanna go ahead with the 'I forgive you for whatever' option. I'd rather be happy with you in the future than cling to being mad at you in the past." She felt a burden lift from her shoulders.

"Feels better doesn't it? Like the past doesn't have so much pull on us anymore, that what they did doesn't hurt as much."

"You're right. Not knowing makes me feel helpless. I _still _feel helpless. But now I feel a little more in control. 'Cause I made a choice, and they can't take it away from me."

"That's my girl." Spike pressed his lips to her cheek.

They lay for a moment, naked bodies pressed together, silent and locked in their own thoughts. "It makes you feel free." Buffy broke the silence.

"What's that?"

"Knowing you can just choose to forgive. I don't think I'm heavy into religion or anything, but this just letting go and forgiveness? Definitely of the good."

"Amen." Spike chuckled, Buffy weakly smacked his arm. He pushed her off and his hand landed palm down on her breast. "Oh, prayin' has its rewards." He cupped the soft mound."

"Stop." She snickered.

"Do I have to?"

"What time is it?" Buffy struggled to see the clock. "Just after seven."

"That gives us a couple hours." Spike led her hand down under the sheet to grasp his erection.

"What about the headaches?"

"I'm still under my vow to Giles to be a gentle man." He emphasized the separation between the words.

"You do that." Buffy kissed him lingeringly. Then a little fire jumped into her eye and she gave him a wicked smile. "He didn't make me promise any such thing."

"I think I'd love it if you had your wicked way with me, Pet." He encouraged, sprawling back. "An' that sounds like somethin' I've said many times before." He watched her awkwardly climbing on top of him.

"I just bet you have." She leaned down and nipped his lips. His hands came up and steadied her hips and remained there after she seated herself on his length, slowly, slowly pushing down, wincing a little.

"God, you're so wet."

"Thought about you." She smiled, but her passage still seemed stubbornly tight around him. With a quick swipe of his tongue against two fingers, he rubbed his wet fingertips across her bead and around her opening, relaxing her. "You're really good at this." She gasped as she sat full on him with a moan of grateful relief.

"I've had years of practice. Decades." _Wait now, decades? How- no, not possible._

Buffy laughed. "Not unless you've had some really good plastic surgery. You can't be more than thirty."

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess not." He laughed back, a little worry in the back of his mind. _I wonder how old I am?_

Giles paced the lobby. Even with over eighteen years of memory missing, the girl still managed to hold her habit of being late. Dear Lord, and the thought about why she might be late was making him alternate between wringing his hands and wiping down his glasses in a constant nervous twitch. Any minute he feared he'd see Spike bringing down either a thoroughly debauched and corrupted Buffy- something in leather and spouting cigarette smoke and fang wounds, or worse, a quiet, crying, ashamed girl who remembered everything but felt violated by her own actions when it wasn't her fault her memories had been forcibly removed.

"Hi!" Buffy's voice was soft but cheerful. Giles trotted briskly to her and Spike as they stepped out of the elevator.

Thank God. Though quiet and subdued, they both seemed none the worse for wear. They held hands and smiled, and Giles suspected the quiet was from fear of setting off their migraine-like headache symptoms, not any emotional regrets. "Hello yourselves. No trouble during the night?" He tried not sound like he was interrogating.

"No one said boo to us." Spike put forth.

Giles nodded, and showed them to the car, parked under the lobby's concrete arrival area. " You leave the luggage to me. I've got blankets in the backseat. Make a dash for it and get covered quickly. Now!" He spoke to Spike, but Buffy went with him, darting in ahead of him and tossing the covers over him quickly before pulling him close against her lap. Giles slammed the door shut, but their bags in the front seat and then drove off as inconspicuously as possible. At least it was Sunnydale. People were extremely used to not noticing things.

Both of his backseat occupants made groaning sounds. "Are you two alright?"

"Buggerin' head on me like I drank my way out of a brewer's vat." Spike moaned.

"What he said. Can this little car not rattle so loud, please?" Buffy asked pitifully.

"I'm sorry, I'll try to shift more gently." Giles drove the rest of the way in silence.

Once they were back to his flat, he ushered them in and Spike and Buffy immediately succumbed to the sofa. "You both are probably immensely dehydrated. I should have realized it last night but with one thing and another, well, the damage is done. But water will almost certainly help." He put a gallon jug of spring water and two glasses on the coffee table. "Now drink." He said sternly. They obeyed.

He watched. They seemed, if anything, _more_ connubial than before, which did not bode well for the state of their impaired memories. Nor for the state of their bodies. Giles watched their hands twine and drape carelessly across Spike's upper thigh as he slouched, draining water with impressive speed. When they had emptied the gallon jug, the Watcher fetched another one.

"If I drink anymore I'm going to turn into a puddle-y puppy." Buffy protested. Giles smiled and was rewarded with one in return.

"Just keep drinking, at least a glass an hour. In Buffy's case, that is. Spike, vampire needs are different, so just drink as you need to, but it should help your headache.

"Ta, mate." Spike leaned back, looking rather washed out in a gray tee shirt and rolled up blue jeans that bagged on him. His eyes flicked up to Giles' tense face. "Would you like to start the twenty questions bit now?"

"Well, I, um- certainly." Giles gave in and reached for his notepad. "Memories? Any new ones? Any new events that you recall?"

"Willow was crying. Alot. And Spike was chained in the bathtub." Buffy swallowed. Her eyes went hard as she looked at Giles. "Why would you do that to him?"

"Me?" Giles sounded flummoxed. After groping for plausible explanations that didn't give up the entire truth he settled for stammering out, "Well- it was- at the time we weren't sure he could be trusted." _I'm still not sure he can be trusted._

"He was already a vampire then. And I knew?" Buffy tried to piece this together.

"Yes, you did."

"But we were going to get married anyway? So my bein' a vamp wasn't an issue?" Spike was also worried by the seeming holes in the timeline.

"In Buffy's case- your vampiric nature wasn't a problem." Giles wished to God he could just tell them about the spell. That everything was fake, their love, the engagement. But it would crush them. Yes, he realized, the vampire would be at a loss as well as the girl he cared for. He said nothing.

"That's somethin' at least." Spike sighed gratefully. Buffy didn't look so sure. In fact, she looked like she questioned her sanity, but then smiled.

"At least I'm not prejudiced."

"Buffy, vampires are very, very dangerous. Spike happens to be one of the rare exceptions. If you see a vampire, don't hesitate to- flee." He had wanted to say attack, but he didn't know if her slayer instincts had kicked in that far.

"Slayer doesn't flee." Spike snorted. "She kicks their asses."

"Yep. That's me. I fight. A lot. How come I fight so much? I know I've been in a lot of fights. Even with Spike."

"Yes, well, that is your unique personality." Giles cleared his throat and turned to Spike. "New memories?"

"Bathtub, chains. You an' me goin' at it hammer an' tongs, arguin'. Oh, and I was here for a big turkey dinner. But it was- it's blurry. Not happy, but it was s'posed to be."

"Buffy, do you remember that?" Giles asked eagerly. That was over a week ago, quite a leap. He felt hopeful for the first time that the effects might reverse themselves fairly quickly without outside help.

"Not a bit." She said apologetically. "Okay, I'm taking a break. Be right back." She headed towards the bathroom, casting a significant look at the empty water glass.

Now that the two men were alone, Giles hemmed and hawed for a minute before asking, "Sleep well?"

"Out like a light."

"Good. Glad to hear that." Giles looked somewhat relieved, and then suspicious. After another pause, "Really?"

"Giles, I promise you I was a perfect gentleman." Spike allowed a smirk to graze his lips before fading back into an expression of innocence.

"You don't want to jar brain tissues." Giles fixed him with a dangerous glare. Spike suddenly felt that there was a lot more to this oddly buttoned down figure.

"I promise. There was no jarrin'. I was a _very_ gentle man." Spike didn't cave easily, strange vibes are not.

"A very gentle-" Giles rose, glasses flinging down to the coffee table as he stood.

Buffy returned and Giles took a deep breath, not sure whether to give her an accusatory glance or pretend as though nothing had happened. "Uh-oh?"

"I was just tellin' him. I was a perfect gentleman. Would you back me up, please, Slayer?"

"He was!" Buffy turned angrily to Giles.

"My apologies." Giles said stiffly, sitting down again.

"Thank you." Spike looked smug.

"I didn't promise to be a lady though." Buffy kissed Giles on the forehead as she sat back down. Seeing his flabbergasted expression, she laughed softly. "I know you don't like it, but he is going to be my husband. He takes good care of me, and I- I love him." She spoke firmly.

_Oh bloody hell._ Giles nodded, or rather, winced with head motion, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. _That's her "I'm going to save the world, even if I end up getting myself killed" face. She means it. I'm going to have to watch them or they'll elope before tomorrow._

"So what do we do to start fixing things? How much memory did we get back this time?" Buffy figured she'd better speak, Giles looked like his brain was shutting down.

"Unfortunately- not a lot. Another few days, and Spike's turkey dinner memory, which seems more like a brief flash than a true memory, was over a week ago."

"We're only gettin' about two days back for every one we spend in recovery?" Spike sounded like he was about to snap. "It's gonna take us over two years to get one year of our lives back! Slayer'll be in her thirties before she remembers her childhood!"

"I won't even remember going to high school until I'm graduated college at this rate!" Buffy's own voice caused her head to throb and she downed a glass of water.

"Which is why need to keep trying to figure out what exactly happened and if there is a way to counteract it. And this slow recovery stage might be temporary. Your brains are still traumatized, you might need a week or two to heal, and then all of your memories will return at once." He tried to be optimistic. He badly wanted to tell them that slayer and vampiric healing would start mending the damage faster than it would for normal humans, but since this weapon was used by a force that seemed to know how to deal with vampires and demons, he had no idea if that was an empty promise. Not to mention he still hadn't told Buffy about her calling, and given how upset she was right now, he decided not to burden her further. "The first thing we need to do is get you to a doctor. But not in Sunnydale, I'm sure these commandos will be watching the hospitals for people admitted with amnesia symptoms. We'll drive to the hospital in the next town, and you'll go in as Belinda Giles, my niece, who hit her head yesterday and can't remember anything clearly past a few days ago. They'll examine you, probably do a CAT scan. Since they don't know the true nature of your injury, I don't expect them to offer a specific solution. But we can least get you examined and see what they say, hear what general suggestions they recommend. Spike-"

"I know. I'm not examinable. With the bein' dead gig." He shrugged. "But what they tell you to do for Slayer, you'll do for me, yeah?"

"As close as we can at any rate." He took a deep breath. All night he had slept fitfully, worrying about what was happening at the hotel, and worrying about what to do, what was the priority. Curing them obviously, and finding information about what had happened to them was essential. Hence the doctor's appointment.

"The other thing we are going to do have to do is find some way to get information about what happened to you, what the weapon that injured you is supposed to do, how long it lasts, etc. For that, we need Willow to do some of her computer research. Hacking, most likely. Even then, as we don't know what this agency is called and apparently it's a secret government operation..." Giles trailed off.

"So we're screwed?"

"Possibly." Giles leaned his head against the back of his chair. "I'm sorry. I bloody hate this, you know. It's my job to help you and I've got bugger all." He kicked the coffee table suddenly. "I'm sorry, that was childish."

"If it helps, it helps." Buffy smiled with a shrug. "You're trying really hard. I can tell. And we appreciate it." Her eyebrows drew together. "You must be the best high school teacher in the world. To get so involved with some random students."

"I-" Wonderful, her perception was running just a little ahead of his excuse list again. "I never had a family of my own, and you, Willow, and Xander, and a few others 'adopted' me as an uncle figure, and- well- it stuck."

Spike looked at him suspiciously. "Isn't it a bit odd for an older man to take up with teens? Teen girls?"

"Not if the man has a beautiful girlfriend of his own." Giles' eyes flared. "She- her name was Jenny- passed away your junior year, Buffy." He got up abruptly, hands shaking, heading to the liquor he kept on the sideboard. _She'd find out again. About Angel, about killing him, about running, about Jenny's murder at Angelus' hands... All the evil. She'd live it again, afresh, as the memories came back._ And he'd relive them with her, all of them would. "Cruel, sadistic bastards, playing with people's heads." He muttered bitterly.

"I'm sorry. Honestly, I was out of line, mate." Spike's hand was on his shoulder. "I didn't know."

"He couldn't know, Giles." Buffy's hand was on his other shoulder. "We're sorry. This has got to be hard on you, too." She began to see that. "It must kill you to watch someone you love like a niece not even remember you."

"But you're still the same sweet, compassionate girl." Giles put the bottle down and hugged her before she could escape. "Even when you're lost to yourself, you manage to think of others. I'm proud of you, Buffy." He released her and looked at Spike. "You- well- amnesia does wonders for our relationship, let me put it that way." Giles smiled ruefully and Spike inclined his head with a sudden smirk of acknowledgement.

Buffy blushed at his kind words, feeling a little spark of warmth inside herself. _I must be pretty special. Even if I feel majorly lost and alone, between Spike and these people willing to really help me, I'm starting to feel better. I don't know what my life was like, but the rest of it should be good if all these great people are in it._

"Aside from the doctor an' waitin' for the redhead to jack up the commandos via computer, what do we do for the day?" Spike got them back on track, feeling somewhat awkward after their exchange._ Hope I don't keep puttin' my foot in it. Do I ever think before I speak?_

"Ah, yes, I thought we'd drive to some familiar locations, see if it jogs your memory at all. And I asked Willow and Xander to bring some photos over, and your high school yearbook. We also need to work out some sort of- overnight accommodations- for you two. We can't keep putting you up in a hotel. It's expensive and your mother is eventually going to ask what's going on."

"As long as you don't try to make us sleep in separate rooms again." Buffy warned him playfully, holding Spike's hand.

"That's essential, is it?" He asked hopelessly.

"Very." Spike didn't bother to hide his leer.

"We'll work something out. First, you need to eat something substantial. Then we'll be ready to face this day. I'll leave a message for Willow, telling her about what time we should be back, you two- make yourselves at home."

Willow jumped when Riley approached her after class. She had been toying with the idea of approaching him. She knew he had to be involved after his appearance in the woods, but had no idea how deeply involved. She knew he and Buffy were starting down the path to romance- or at least the path to dating, so she assumed Riley wouldn't be responsible for injuring Buffy. All the same, he was a link to these operatives and he might be useful.

On the other hand, Willow's panicking voice warned her as Riley came closer, what do I really know about the guy? He seems all nice and polite, but he's probably some super secret spy dude, and it could all be an act. He could have deliberately tried to hurt Buffy! He could be suspicious of me 'cause we were in the woods when they were and maybe he wants to grill me like a cheese sandwich and-

"Hey, Willow." Riley smiled charmingly and held out a paper to her.

"Hi." Willow squeaked.

"You weren't at class the other day. I have your paper. Another perfect score!"

"Oh, good. Thanks. Well- um, thanks." She hastily pushed the paper into her bag and began to turn away.

"I have Buffy's paper, too." Riley held up another from the stack he carried. "If you'll be seeing her?"

_Is that a threat? Is that a grilling? _Willow took the paper slowly. "Yeah. Thanks." She decided to say as little as possible.

Riley groaned internally in frustration. He'd really like to do this directly. _Please tell me the names of the three people you were with yesterday. _But no. Stealth. Start a conversation. Which seemed to be a one-sided affair right now. "Um. Are you guys okay? Is Buffy okay? It isn't like either of you to miss class. And missing two classes in a row is dangerous around here. Walsh is a stickler, you know that." He walked with her as she tried to leave the lecture hall.

"Oh. Yeah, she's fine. She will be. I stayed home with her to take care of her, that's all." Willow swallowed before she could say more. _Bad mouth. Less talking._

"Oh. Give her my- my best." Riley blushed. "Hey- do you think it's corny if I send her flowers? I mean, is it too soon?"

_I am a bad, suspicious person. Look at him. He'd never hurt Buffy. He asked for tips on wooing her, he took her on a picnic! A nice, normal guy boyfriend in the making. _"She'd love that." But Spike would not, and she could just see the jealous argument beginning. "But-uh- you might not want to just yet. I'll tell her you mentioned it. Well..." She made another attempt to extract herself.

Riley remembered his duty. Find out the names of the others who'd been with her on the "nature walk" and start digging into their lives to see if they had connections to the HSTs. Stop obsessing about the beautiful, angelic, funny, little blonde... He forced his mind back on task. "Did you have fun on your nature walk?"

"Nature walk- oh, yeah!" Willow nodded, remembering her cover story in time. "And you? Did you have fun on- what were _you _doing there?"

"We were- um- a bunch of the TAs had a scavenger hunt." _We were hunting, that's true. _He wasn't good at lying. Especially not to women. Women should be treated with honesty and respect, and his father would probably kill him for deceiving a girl if it wasn't for the good of his country.

"Really? Did you win?"

"Win? No. No, we didn't find what we were supposed to." Riley answered, again truthfully. "Who was that professor that was with you? I didn't know any professors organized nature walks."

"Professor? Oh, Giles. Not a professor, he's just a family friend."

"Were those your brother and sister then? Or cousins? A family outing?"

"Just friends." Willow suddenly realized the questions no longer sounded like conversation. They sounded like- well- questioning. She was torn between getting some interrogation, clumsy though it would be, in herself, and running for cover. _Think of Buffy. Be brave like Buffy._ "We tried to go there the night before. The ROTC had blocked it off. Riley- can a military group block off an area of campus? Make students leave? Isn't that kind of unfair?"

"I don't know. Probably. If they had some good reason, a training exercise or something. So these friends-"

"I have to go. Buffy's probably all miserable, being alone." Willow cut him off. Her interrogation skills earned a big fat goose egg, but she didn't have to let him get anything else out of her.

"I'll walk you to your room. I can pay my respects without-"

"No! No, no, Buffy sick- is just- she'd kill you. You know, cute guy in the room, and she's all icky and gross with the being sick thing. I gotta go." And she darted, leaving Riley standing open mouthed.

Willow power walked to her room, trying not to give in to the urge to run. '_Cause that'd look _real_ normal... _Once inside, she called Giles immediately, not even listening to her messages. "Giles?" His machine came on. "Giles, listen, one of the guys we saw on our nature walk was asking -" Willow stopped, paranoia setting in._ What if they tapped the lines? Do they do that? Would they do that? Isn't that illegal? Well, shooting Buffy's brain with a taser needle thingy is illegal and they did that, so line tapping is probably considered routine, 'do it on your lunch break' stuff. _"I'm coming over." She hung up and then listened to her messages.

"Wills? It's the Xan Man. I'm going to have to work until dark tonight, we're backed up at the groundbreaking site. If you're going over to Giles' can you call Anya first and have her meet you to walk over? I'll give you both a lift home after."

"Hello, Willow, it's me. Could you bring Buffy some more outfits and- personal items? Also, photo albums, yearbooks, anything you think might help jog her memory. I'm taking her to the doctor's and I've no idea how long it will take. If you'd like to start trying to do some of the research on the computer, and you'd like to be here, feel free to let yourself in with the key. You know where it is. See you soon."

Willow erased the messages and considered smashing the tape from the machine as well. _Memory loss. You can't go and say memory loss, commandos might be listening in! And oh God. Giles. I told Riley his name!_

Willow began packing for Buffy, her mind whirling endlessly in worry and then in an attempt to calm herself down. She mumbled as she dug through her small bookcase and her plastic storage boxes, finding photo albums and memorabilia to help stir Buffy's dormant memories. "Riley isn't a stalker. You've watched one too many conspiracy movies. What if they go to Giles' house? What if they raid it and kidnap Buffy and force her into life as a government guinea pig and it's all my fault because I said 'Giles'? I'm being silly. Am I being silly? I really wish Buffy were here..."

Buffy, however, was huddling miserably in Spike's arms, her legs dangling over a hospital gurney, looking at the ER doctor with wounded eyes. "Well, I'd say you'd been in a car accident, or something similar. This is a classic TBI -traumatic brain injury, but aside from the minimal bruise on the back of your neck- there's nothing that points to it. In addition the location of the bruise would point to your cerebellum being injured, but the scan shows all the damage is in the hippocampus and right side of your cerebrum. I've never seen anything like it." Casting a hesitant look between the protective blonde man and the stiffly, self-controlled gray haired man, the doctor finally asked a question he'd repeated multiple times during his exam. "Are you sure that you didn't take any drugs, such as LSD or-"

He never finished. Both men leapt from their respective seats and he found himself suddenly falling through the hanging curtain that separated beds in the ER.

"My fiancée already answered your goddamn drug question five times!" Spike growled.

"My niece has never taken drugs and she made it very clear that she was hit on the back of the head!" Giles hauled the doctor to his feet.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, it's my job to ask!" The doctor shook off Giles' hand with a stammer. Buffy sniffled and Spike resumed his seat.

"Shh, Poppet, they'll help us fix it." Spike looked at the doctor with a mixture of anger and pleading in his eyes. "It doesn't make sense, the injury. Fine. It's still there, makin' sense or not. What can we do to fix it?"

"It's not like in the movies. Amnesia doesn't usually disappear suddenly when some big event occurs, definitely not from another hit on the head. It will take time and rest. The more rest the better. Let your brain heal. You can take aspirin for the pain. I can write you a prescription for something stronger if you-"

"I don't want pain pills." Buffy muttered, eyes closed. "I want my memory back!"

"There are no treatments?" Giles asked.

"Memory training with an occupational therapist. If she was disorganized and confused about life skills-"

"Which I'm not. I know my math and- okay, I don't know who's president, but I know we have one, and a congress, and I know how to read." Her eyes overflowed. "What I don't know is how I met my boyfriend or what my last birthday was like or anything about my high school graduation. All the milestones!"

Giles made a strangled noise as he thought about those circumstances. _She met Spike when he led her to an ambush to watch her fight and then told her he planned to kill her that Saturday. For her eighteenth birthday, I drugged her as part of a Council test, she lost all her slayer abilities and faced an insane vampire who'd kidnapped her mother. Then I got fired and she quit. For graduation, we blew up the school and she nearly died facing a full demon who used to be the mayor._ _Part of me wishes she'd never remember any of that. _"Bu- Belinda, don't cry." Giles put his arm around her, ignoring Spike's warning growl.

"Visiting familiar places, talking with family and friends- all that helps. Some types of amnesia are made worse by a deficiency in thiamin, but not a TBI. Still, since I've never seen anything like this before, I recommend you take a good B vitamin supplement with a high concentration of thiamin just to hedge your bets."

"Medical science has nothing then?" Giles shook his head with a bitter, twisted expression. "Come along. They can do nothing for us."

"Electroshock therapy could be used in some cases. As a last resort. But- there seems to be almost electrical damage to the-" Spike cut the doctor off as he and Buffy exchanged a wide eyed glance. The man was getting too close to the truth, and no one was hurting his Slayer.

"We're not at the last resort yet." Spike snarled. He took Buffy's arm and steered her away. "Come on, Slayer. Let's get out of here."

Riley hated personally digging through computer databases with a passion. It was a desk job, and he was a field agent. This was Leland's fault, and Leland's squad should do the grunt work. But since Walsh seemed to have faith in him, he sat hunched over a glowing screen in his room at Lowell House.

Willow Rosenberg was one smart, smart cookie, and had a lot of trips to the hospital. Nothing sinister. He ended his search on her.

Giles- after a lot of false starts he realized that could be a last name and he turned up files on resident alien, British citizen Rupert Giles, former librarian of former Sunnydale High. A few police investigations. Another butt load of hospital visits and a surprisingly big decrease in income halfway through last year,_ before_ the school got blown sky high by a gas leak.

Looking through the Sunnydale High school computerized files- which were largely incomplete since the school database was no longer maintained, turned up a picture of a man Riley _thought_ he might recognize. But he wasn't sure. Just in case, he dug up info on Alexander Harris, but discovered nothing except a driver's license and again- a serious amount of hospital trips in the last three years.

Jesus, what'd these three get up to? So many injuries between the three of them, and yet they seemed to have nothing in common aside from being at the old high school at the same time.

He found nothing on the fourth person, the girl, as he had no name to go on and no photo turned up in the school files or the UCSD records that he recognized.

Giving up for a bit to get something to much and clear his head, Riley mulled over Willow's behavior. He didn't know her very well, but he had spoken to her a few times, knew about her recent heartbreak, and considered her an ally in his attempts to court Buffy. She wasn't usually quite so rattled. And she_ never_ missed class. For that matter, neither did Buffy, and now she'd been absent twice.

With a strange nagging feeling in the back of his mind, Riley crashed on his bed, a bag of chips in his hand, eyes closed. He smiled as he pictured that girl. She was an oddity in a world of regular girls, and he liked it. She seemed to want to get to know him better, too. He hoped whatever was making her sick would be gone soon, so they could get this relationship off the ground. A picnic and playing a practical joke on him about getting engaged to some old guy named Spike was_ not_ a promising start.

He wondered idly if Buffy was sick when Willow and her friends had gone for the nature walk. Would she have come, too? Was she an outdoorsy girl? Probably not, she was so petite and perfect, and always wore cute clothes and had that long blonde hair...

Petite. Blonde. Willow, Buffy's best friend and roommate in the same area as the failed capture. Twice, if Leland's three civilians happened to be the same as his four civilians.

"No way. It's not possible." Riley jerked himself up and over to the computer and pulled up everything Leland's squad reported about their civilian interference. A report by Adams described the three civilians as an older English man, a redheaded student and a brunette male of college age, also suspected to be a student.

"Why would they be there twice in twenty four hours? Unless they were snooping around? Or looking for someone?"

Riley pulled up the footage of Leland's squad's attempt to capture Hostile Seventeen and his mate. He looked at the video and the captured still. Nothing clear. Instead of looking at the blurry night vision recording, which showed nothing useful except the general size of the HSTs since they moved so fast, he ran the sound recording, looking at a written statement as well.

_"Slayer! On your left!" _That was confirmed to be HST 17.

_ "Confirmed, escaped HST Seventeen!" A deep voice boomed."This must be its mate!" _Riley thought that might be Benning, but he wasn't sure.

_ "HEY!" _A male and female voice in unison. One would be the escaped hostile, and the other was the mate, of course.

_ "Bag 'em! We never had a mated HST!" _That was Leland.

_ "Shit." _The HST again. Lots of scuffling, crashing, grunting.

_ "You know what they say about men who hide behind big guns, right?" _Much fainter, a female voice. More scuffling.

_ "Retrieve him!" _Leland again.

Riley closed the recording. He'd heard enough. He wouldn't put in a report or anything yet. He needed to do a little more digging. Find out what exactly Buffy was sick wtih. Talk to Willow. Talk to Adams and show him pictures of Willow, Rupert Giles, and Alexander Harris and see if they matched.

"I don't believe this." Riley viciously kicked his computer desk, knocking the monitor backwards. He wasn't sure. He didn't have a lot to go on, and the voice was faint. But he _thought _the female voice on the recording might be Buffy's.

"This is where I went to high school? What the hell happened to it?" Buffy and Spike were participating in a not so enjoyable sight seeing tour.

"Gas explosion. Amongst other things." Giles laughed nervously. "Any- any bells?"

"I think I hated it. Would that be right?" She asked in a falsely sweet tone.

"Mostly, yes."

"If Slayer an' I knew each other for two years, she was in high school then. Did we go about together back in those days?"

"You- uh- saw quite a lot of each other. But it wasn't exclusive." Giles found himself wishing he'd taken the doctor up on his offer of a painkiller prescription. The constant fabrication of careful "true but not true" statements were giving him the worst headache he'd ever had not induced by alcohol or a blunt object. "You did come here to see Buffy one night, Spike. Do you happen to recall?"

"Nope. An' if the building was s'posed to jog my memory, it failed. Couldn't tell this place from a war zone."

"Right. To the Bronze." Giles had already taken them past Buffy's house, Willow's house, Xander's house, all three cemeteries- and all that had earned him was some extremely frightened looks- and now they were on to local landmarks. "This is completely ineffective, and I'm sorry." Giles sighed. "Spike can't do more than peer out the window at these places anyway because of the sunlight, and we can't very well barge into the homes of your mother or your friends without some very awkward conversations."

"Well- at least I know what my house looks like." Buffy tried to be cheerful. "Maybe you should try some places where Spike lived."

"Do you know any?" Spike got the impression that very little about his personal life was known by anyone but Buffy- and she wasn't exactly in a position to help.

"Yes. I- know of two places you stayed." Giles answered, a sudden rigidity in his shoulders. "But first, the Bronze. Buffy, the Bronze was your regular hang out. It still is, actually. Spike,I believe you went there a time or two yourself, although I believe you probably prefer a bar called 'Willie's'. I suppose we'll drive past that as well."

Giles took them to the Bronze, which was closed at this point, being mid-afternoon. He pulled his small car into the dark alley. "You can get out here."

"In an alley?" Buffy felt mildly uneasy.

"Is this some kind of trick?" Spike was completely uneasy. He knew the man loved Buffy, but was confident Giles was just a step above hating him.

"No! Lord, try- _try_ to trust _someone_." Giles snapped.

"I do! His name is Spike." Buffy snapped back.

"You needn't get out of the car. But if you'd like to- go ahead." Giles gave up and put his head on the steering wheel.

"I could stretch my legs. First the tub an' now this. I swear he likes to keep me in confined spaces." Spike muttered, getting out and immediately heading to the darkest part of the grungy brick wall.

Buffy walked slowly around the alley and its nameless debris. "Dirty. Kinda looks like the place you should never, ever go by yourself. Or at night. Or at all." Spike laughed softly at her and dug about in his coat. "What are you looking for?"

"A cigarette. I need a smoke."

"You smoke?"

"I think so. Oi! Giles, do I smoke?"

"Yes!" Giles shouted back, head still on the wheel.

"Aww, hell." Spike held up a thoroughly crushed packet of Marlboros. "Must've done it in the scuffle with the baddies. "Can we get some more on the way to your place?"

"No!" Giles shouted automatically.

"Wanker." Spike muttered and jammed his hands back in his pockets, looking fidgety. "Need somethin' to do with my mouth." He licked his lips and caught Buffy's eye. "Slay-er." He crooned, and stalked towards her.

Giles' head shot up. This was more like it. Spike as a predator. Maybe his hunting stance and his eerie little sing song tone would awaken Buffy's slayer instincts and she'd- Giles sighed. The stupid girl fell easily into Spike's arms and they appeared to be giving each other a tonsillectomy by tongue.

"That's enough! If it isn't brining anything back, we might as well go. Before I bring something _up_." Giles ordered them into the car.

"Finish that later, yeah, Pet?" Spike rotated his groin against her hips as they slowly pulled apart.

"Mmhmm. I can't wait to see what we can do once these headaches stop." She whispered.

"Did that remind you of anything that didn't involve CPR?" Giles asked tersely as they set off again.

"I got into some fights at that place. I know that. But I kinda knew that before. Still, nice to have a location to go with my ass kicking. If I could just get some names and faces, I'd be super happy." Buffy said in a chipper voice, grinning up at Spike.

"Mm, bet you kicked my ass there, Sweetheart." He purred, nibbling at her ear.

"Ooh, I bet I did." She giggled and nuzzled into his jaw.

"Stop that! I can't drive while you two are necking in my car!"

Giles drove the pair past Willie's, refusing to stop. "Both of you are well known to the owner and many of the patrons, and word spreads fast among the- uh- gang community. You'd have a lot of explanation or acting to do if you didn't want the entire town to know you were suffering from amnesia. Talking to anyone you don't know well is going to make you an easy target."

"So just trust _you_ an' the three kids we met at your house?" Spike quirked one eyebrow up.

"Spike, don't pick on him." Buffy curled her fingers around his arm and he relented. "He's right. We don't know them well, but we know them better than anyone else. Except for each other."

"That's right, Slayer. You an' me. Least we've got that." The nuzzling resumed.

Giles tried very hard not to drive into oncoming traffic on purpose.

"Another gas explosion?" Spike and Buffy got out of the car again, this time in front of the burnt out remains of a large warehouse.

"Fire. When you first arrived in Sunnydale, you and your entourage set up here."

"Oh, an entourage. That sounds fairly posh." Spike's stride changed to a swagger and he surveyed the building.

"In a warehouse? That's not posh, That's shifty." Buffy took him down a peg.

"Please, Luv, with a name like 'Spike' I'm obviously 'shifty'." He grinned and pulled her against him slowly- still careful of her head, and never making sudden moves. "An' with a name like Slayer, you know you like it."

Giles remained silent with an effort. He was tired of asking if any recollections occurred, only to keep hearing a negative answer. And he was tired of both of his charges assuming the title "Slayer" had some sort of violent, criminal association. The Slayer was chosen, a force for good and purity.

"Had some wild times in here, I'll bet." Spike looked up at the charred frame. Vague images floated in and out of his mind. A gray concrete room full of people. A tug that he should know, that he should care deeply about some of the things that happened here- and he got nothing. "Let's go." He muttered in disappointment.

"This next place will be our last stop then." Giles was exhausted. He wanted all of them to take a nap and eat something, and for them to all wake up normal in the morning.

"Wow. Look at this place." Buffy's mouth dropped open when they got to the abandoned end of Crawford Street. A disused, half dilapidated mansion stood like a gothic beacon on the rise of the street.

"I lived here?" Spike blinked at the hulking stone house.

"Again, with others." Giles licked his suddenly dry lips. He had no desire to ever set foot in that house again. It was a place of death, deceit, torture. Broken hearts and broken, bleeding bodies.

Buffy and Spike seemed similarly affected. They clasped hands, and both had stopped speaking. Giles watched as Spike's free hand absently began rubbing his back. "Your back troubling you, Spike?"

"Just a twinge." Spike replied absently, and his hand slowly fell away.

Buffy led the way, mouth drying out. "This is creepy."

"You both spent a lot of time here." Giles pointed out softly.

"Well, that's the first good thing I've heard all day." Buffy smiled reassuringly at Spike, who smiled back more slowly. They walked slowly through the exterior rooms, the little over grown garden on the terrace, and into the house proper.

"A step up from the warehouse, gotta say." Spike preened.

"Maybe. Maybe not. Chains on the walls?" Buffy pointed to one corner of the great room.

"Shackles." Spike specifically noticed the cuffs. They exchanged a look.

Giles saw the look go from worried and upset, to curious, until both of them seemed almost shy, and Buffy was bright pink. _Lovely. Leave her with him for two nights and she's suddenly imagining hardcore fetishes_. "Oh, no! Not like that! It wasn't like that!" Giles suddenly shouted, and Spike and Buffy both recoiled from his voice as it echoed in the empty house.

"I don't like this place." Buffy shook her head. "This wasn't a happy place for us, was it?"

"No." Giles smiled sadly. "Not for you, nor any of your friends."

"Was it my fault?" Spike asked their guide, something like contrition in his voice.

"For once, Spike, I can honestly say you were not at fault for anything that went on in this house. You weren't happy here either, from what Buffy told me. You tried to help." _Admittedly he tried to help because he didn't want to be sucked into hell, and he wanted to get Drusilla away from Angel, but still. He helped._

"We worked together once." Buffy remembered the fact, if not the circumstances. Giles, is this where Spike and I worked together one time?"

"He lived here, then, yes. The exact details, I'm not sure about."

"I am. This was a bad place. But once we left it, everything started looking up."

"Don't know how you know, but you know?" Spike chuckled at her, taking her offered hand.

"Exactly. We'll come back here when we're feeling better. Right now I could murder a nap and big juicy burger."

"Best idea I've heard all day." Giles agreed, and eagerly headed to the car and home.

_To be continued..._


	5. Chapter 5

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Notes: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Dedicated to Idiosyncratic Delusions, Lithium Reaper, McPastey, ginar369, DLillith21, and GoodfortheSoul_

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part V

Giles turned the key in the lock with an exhausted moan. "At long last. Home sweet-"

"Were you followed! Did you speak to anyone? Did anyone ask you anything?Willow yanked Buffy and Spike through the door, and pulled Giles in after with a startled yelp.

"What in the-?" Giles sputtered. Spike and Buffy seemed to be acting on instinct. Only it was curious to see, because instead of instinctively distrusting one another, they had closed ranks. In just a second they were standing back to back, pressed to each other, Spike's hand already flicking open his switchblade and Buffy's head in a constant swiveling search as her hands curled into fists.

"Willow's paranoid. Although with good reason." Anya said much more calmly as she appeared from the kitchen. "Was the head doctor able to fix your brains?"

"Someone tell us what's goin' on before we answer questions." Spike demanded.

"With a minimum of panic, Willow. All of us have headaches." Giles warned.

"Oh, no, is the brain pain thing catching?" Anya took a large step back. "Because I refuse to forget Xander."

"We've just had a long, icky day." Buffy placated. "Nothing about losing your memory is contagious."

"Sit down and listen then." Willow tried not to sound shrill.

"Can we at least have tea during the crisis?" Giles begged.

"An' blood?"

"And juice?" Buffy asked hopefully.

"I've already heard the dire situation. I'll go make food and blood and tea and juice." Anya nodded, seemingly glad to leave the near hysterical Willow.

"Riley stopped me after psych class today!" She began significantly.

"Who?" Buffy asked.

"What?" Spike frowned.

"Oh, did he?" Giles waved her on.

"Riley Finn, the guy who you just started to-" Willow froze like a deer in the headlights.

Spike edged forward from where he had sank on the couch. Buffy leaned forward as well, moving slowly and cautiously. "The guy she what?"

"He's the teacher's assistant in our class. He likes you." She nodded to Buffy.

"Well, that's great, but he can't have me!" Buffy frowned, crossing her arms.

"Yeah- but- see, never mind." Willow shook her head and closed her eyes. "He did know about Spike and the engagement- you ran into him in front of a bridal store."

"Oh. Oh, then he's no problem." Spike nodded and sank back, Buffy automatically cuddling up closer to him.

Willow chewed her inner cheek for a minute and decided to bypass the details of how and why Riley still had good reason to believe he had a shot at Buffy, in favor of getting to the bad news. "Whatever. Riley still cares about Buffy. And get this- when we went searching for you- Riley was one of the guys in the woods. Acting weird and wearing olive drab."

"He's one of the goons that broke my brain? I am so not even letting him down gently." Buffy snorted.

"Kick his green butt, Luv." Spike patted her back.

"Focus! He came up to me today, and Giles, he was all like 'Where's Buffy? Can I see Buffy? Oh, I'll just walk you to your room. It's not like her to miss a class.'" Willow spoke in a falsely deep voice.

"He knows?" Giles joined the panic train.

"I don't know." Willow rubbed her hair frantically.

Anya returned with a mug of blood and one of tea, and then bought out a big bowl of soup and a glass of apple juice for Buffy. "Eat while you freak out. It's not good for the digestion, but you need to keep your strength up."

"That's not the worst part. Because, okay, he really likes Buffy, and Buffy- uh- well, you're nice to him. Not in a way you should worry about, Spike!" She forestalled the jealous growling. "So, yeah, he might have just been a little overzealous about his Buffy-crush. But the thing is, he started asking me about what _we_ were doing out there, only not too directly, so I would notice it, you know? Anyway, I _did_ notice it, that he stopped sounding like he was just talking to me and began to sound like he was questioning me. He was sniffing around about who you were and who Xander and Anya were." Her eyes were very wide and bright as she looked at Giles. "I- mentioned your name. Just 'Giles', you know? But he can figure out a lot from the name Giles, because there aren't a lot of Gileses in the world, at least in Sunnydale. I didn't tell him Xander or Anya's names because I realized what he was doing by then." She let out a sudden wail. "I'm so sorry!"

"Whoa, whoa, Red." Willow launched herself into Giles' arms and he patted her awkwardly. Spike tried to reason things out. "So he gets the name. He finds out that Giles is a friend of yours and Buffy's. They can't connect him to us if we're not here."

"What?" Anya cocked her head and looked at the vampire. "You are here. I can see you."

"Spike means that the best thing for us to do is not be around any of you. They can't get you in trouble- I hope- if they can't connect us to you. And they can't capture us if we're not here if they do pay you a visit."

"We're all jumping the gun." Giles shook his head. "There's nothing even publicly known that connects any of us to Buffy, and nothing at all that connects us to Spike. Our only connection on record is that all of us were at Sunnydale High School for the three years prior to its demise, and we went on one walk together. If anyone should worry, it's Willow. You're Buffy's roommate."

"I won't go back there. You can- you can tell them I'm too sick to stay in the dorms. Tell them I went to stay with my father in - where was it?" Buffy turned to Anya.

"Los Angeles." She supplied.

"Now, lets not add lies into the mix unless we have to." Giles pushed Willow off of him gently. "First things first- we've got to get Buffy's school records fixed so it looks like she has a medical exemption from class and can get her take home finals."

"Oh, that was the easy part. I took care of all of that before I started trying to turn the tables on Riley Finn." Willow wiped her eyes with a small smile.

Riley was glad Adams was a third rate soldier who couldn't hold his alcohol. The young man described the civilians in pitiful detail and couldn't remember facial characteristics when shown the photos, but when all the information was combined, Riley got the impression that Willow, Rupert Giles, and Alexander Harris were in the area where the two HSTs had been lost. More, they'd been there twice in the space of a day.

Fortuitously, after drinking a six pack, Adams wasn't even sure why Finn had asked him to his room. Riley was confident Adams wouldn't wonder why he had been grilling him, and that was good, because Riley wasn't sure what was going on himself. Riley saw him off with a smile that changed to scowl as soon as the door closed behind him.

"Okay. That doesn't necessarily mean anything." Finn murmured comfortingly to himself as he began a search he knew wasn't exactly justifiable. It was a hunch. A good soldier doesn't go for hunches, he goes for the sure thing. Too bad he was a little bit sick of being a good soldier today.

"Summers, Buffy. We'll start with UCSD and then Sunnydale High, and then police and medical and _holy shit_." Riley blinked as the scroll bar on the right hand side of his page became a tiny blue line. "That is some file..."

Searching for the most recent items first, that is, those at college, Riley blinked when something with that day's date appeared. "Medical exemption... debilitating migraines. _Migraines_." He opened another window and logged onto the massively encrypted database of Initiative research. He only had access to certain files, but that was okay. He only needed one, one pet project of Maggie Walsh's, and as her right hand man, all of her files were accessible to him.

"Let's just see what neuro tasers do to humans." He whispered grimly, and began to read.

"Well done, Willow!" Giles praised when she showed him Buffy's falsified exemptions and requests for take home finals.

"And _this_ is what I got on Finn. I can't find anything on 'secret government demon agency' or 'secret demon military lab'- although I got a lot of pop up ads for computer games based on those searches." She clicked through a document of copied and pasted information. "He was in Army Ranger training. Elite forces- and then look- five months ago, he's given an honorable discharge and no reason why, even though his enlistment wasn't up for almost another two years!"

"He's still on US Armed Forces payroll." Anya pointed over Willow's shoulder at a bank record.

"He is?" Willow hadn't paid too much attention to the money angle.

"So this place- it _is_ military funded. It might not be army or navy, or some specific branch, but they're funded by the military." Giles nodded. "I take it those types of organizations are hard to hack into, Willow?"

"It might not be so hard- but I don't have a name or anything to go on."

"Try Hostile Seventeen." Spike suggested.

"Try HST." Buffy added.

"Try all that, plus the name Riley Finn." Anya chimed. Willow nodded and typed as requested.

A large orange emblem appeared on the screen. "You are not authorized to view this page." Willow swallowed her excitement. "We got something!"

"Wow! You guys are like- awesome!" Buffy was impressed.

Willow made a note of the address that appeared on the blocked page and then began frantically clicking and typing away, shutting the computer down.

"Hey, wait! It was just getting good!" Anya complained.

"If they can operate an underground lab full of vampires, they can trace a hacker back to a specific computer. I'm covering our tracks before they track us!" Willow said authoritatively. "I'm going to do this on a protected laptop I'm working on. It's at my parents'. They'll have a way harder time finding us on that. I think."

The front door banged open as Willow finished speaking.

Xander didn't know why everyone screamed when he came into the room. And he didn't appreciate Buffy throwing a full glass of apple juice at him before he even said hello.

"This doesn't make sense. Even if she was with him, she's not a demon. There'd be no way on earth they should have used a neuro taser on her. Even if she was helping him, a regular taser, a tranq dart, anything but that." Riley was sickened. Neuro tasers had been tested on military prisoners, volunteers wishing to get their sentences reduced. High level doses put people into comas for weeks. Mid level doses put people under for days. Low doses for hours. People with high doses were still waiting for _any_ memory to return. The research had begun ten months ago.

What made him the sickest of all, was that Maggie Walsh was doing the research for the purpose of "reprogramming" HSTs, and she'd yet to test it on one. Apparently HSTs were too rare and valuable to risk damaging, but humans were a dime a dozen. The only HSTs it had been tested on were Hostile Seventeen and his "mate". No wonder Walsh was ready to kill someone. The culminating point of her research and they'd lost the test subjects.

Side effects were pain, brain and nervous system damage consistent with electrical shock. Memory loss. The goal was to have the slate wiped completely blank for three weeks, twenty one days, minimum. According to Walsh's research into behavior modification, it took twenty one days to erase a bad habit, or ingrain a new one. At least in terms of humans. So, give an HST no recollection of its past and train it rigorously for twenty one days, and in three weeks, you might have yourself a being with super strength or special abilities and it doesn't know anyone but its handlers. A perfect, loyal, obedient, reprogrammed creature. And if doesn't work, oh well, try it again with a higher setting, or keep training it for longer. _But what would you want with one, anyway?_

Riley focused on the final paragraph. _Humans treated with a low setting and left out of reprogramming schedules regained no memory for at least three weeks. After three weeks, memory began to slowly return, increasing incrementally as the damage to the hippocampus healed fully. See Figure 12 A. Differences in males and females, see Figure 12 B. For age dispersion, see Figure 12 C. _

"But we don't tase innocent girls! We do _not_. _I _would not, Maggie would never! How could they have made the mistake?" Riley ran his hands through his hair, tempted to pull it out. He knew Buffy was one hundred percent human. He went clear back to her birth records, for God's sake. His first thought was maybe she was a vampire, but he'd walked with her in the sunshine and eaten a picnic with her on the lawn. Not vampire accessible activities. No, what was actually likely, was that she was a stupid little thrill seeker, running with a vampire- or maybe running from him- and she got caught in the crossfire.

He'd read her records. She was a menace, questioned in murder investigations multiple times, held in conjunction with arson, breaking and entering, acts of vandalism and violence. Her school record, written personally by the principal, seemed to wax lyrical about her ability to create trouble. But at least he had the connection now. Harris and Rosenberg's names didn't appear in connection with misdeeds in their own files- they were all written up in conjunction with Buffy's. And Rupert Giles name was constantly listed as pleading for clemency for Buffy, or the teacher on record during her "bad behavior". A huge number of late and excuse notes also seemed to be signed by him.

This left him in a moral dilemma. But not for long. Okay, she was appearing to be sweet, wonderful girl- and apparently like a ninja or something, but she was a human girl. A bad one. Not the girl for him, despite the flutter she gave his heart. He didn't need that kind of woman shadowing his name with murder and arson suspicions, ruining his military career. But still a _human_ girl. That was the key point. She hadn't been convicted, and she hadn't consented, and now she was probably lying in a coma somewhere, mistakenly diagnosed with "migraines".

She didn't deserve to be bagged. Humans were not baggable, research had already been done on them, so there. On the other hand- why had she been helping an escaped vampire? Why were her friends there, if not to help the vampire, or were they just following her?

"I gotta go talk to Willow." He stood up, feeling gritty eyed and stressed.

A smart tapping on his door changed his plans. "Hey, man. Mama Bird wants you to lead a patrol. Leland just got put under discipline. He let Adams get shit faced on his watch." Gates peeked his head through Riley's door.

"Swell." Riley said with heavy sarcasm.

"Where've you been all day man? It's way past dinner."

"Cleaning up another of Leland's mistakes." Riley quickly closed down his computer. "And I have to write a report on it. Walsh is gonna have to wait another day, I can lead a patrol, or I can type. Can't do both." He smirked suddenly. "Unless you wanna write the -"

"No, Sir!" Gates disappeared with a deep chuckle, banging the door shut in his haste.

Well, at least that keeps the hounds at bay for another few hours, Riley thought, and changed into his uniform.

"So it's just possible? It's not definite?" Xander, sticky but dry, listened to the greatly interrupted tale of woe that Willow had shared earlier.

"It's probable. Spike has eluded them twice now. Because we were there, presumably for his sake, they'll assume we have a connection to him, even if they don't connect us to Buffy."

"Which they probably will, based on Will's conversation with stalker boy. Geez, Buff, I'm sorry. You never catch a break with guys, do you?"

"Oi!" Spike looked extremely offended.

"He just means because you're a vampire!" Willow hastily explained, giving Xander a warning glare.

"Well- I'm not exactly normal myself. Am I?" Buffy looked Giles in the eye, her piercing gaze telling him not to try lying.

"She's normal. You're normal, Slayer. You're just fast and strong." Spike took her hand. "Tell her. Tell her she's fine." His gaze told Giles not to hurt the girl, not to lie, but not to give her one more piece of unwelcome news.

"You _are_ fine, Buffy. And you're abnormally fast and strong. You have increased senses. You use them for good, to help people." Giles said gently. "You are every inch a normal girl in other respects. You shouldn't feel as though you need to seek out a partner with- special qualities- to match your own."

"It's a good thing I picked Spike because I love him then, isn't it?" She said with a tinge of frost in her voice.

"You lot seriously need to get it through your heads. We're gettin' married!" Spike said in exasperation. "Which reminds me, has anyone seen Slayer's engagement ring?"

"Ooh! Right. It's big, and silver, kind of has a skull motif?" Buffy suddenly looked alive and eager again, and her friends gave up and smiled.

"I haven't seen it, but I'll look." Assured Giles.

"I'll look in our room, but I think you gave it back to Spike after the sp-" Willow licked her lips as she suddenly realized she'd almost given everything away, again. "After the 'specially huge argument you had." Xander and Anya rolled their eyes, and Giles pretended nothing was wrong, his knuckles white around the handle of his tea cup.

"All in the past, right, Luv? Arguments and battles, all under the bridge?"

"Right. Forgiven. And very forgotten. But I want my ring! I love my substitute necklace, but- I guess I'm a traditionalist. I want my engagement ring to _be_ a ring." The couple on the couch giggled like lovebirds and kissed, noses rubbing together as they gazed into each other's eyes.

"She's marrying a vampire and her ring is a silver skull? Traditional has sure changed in a thousand years." Anya mumbled. Xander squeezed her knee and fortunately the kissing couple didn't hear her.

Giles cleared his throat, wanting the kissing to end. "I think we need to warn Joyce."

"My mother?" Buffy queried, lips flying from Spike's.

"Gotta see her. Wanna see what I'm gettin' in twenty years time." Spike pawed her and Buffy laughed again, situating her hips more closely to his.

"She'll want to speak to you, perhaps. Just to be assured of your well-being."

"But my being is not well." Buffy pointed out.

"I'll coach you on what to say. Just- this is for her protection. We'll simply tell her that if anyone asks, she should say you're recuperating at your father's house."

"She won't think that's odd?" Spike arched his dark brows.

"We'll explain it's because of a boy that won't accept you've rejected his advances."

"Buffy's mom will never go for that! She'd go beat him up!" Xander yelped.

"He has a point." Willow agreed.

"Wow. Go Mom." Buffy smiled. "How's she like Spike?"

"Erm- well- I believe she has mixed feelings about him."

"Probably because I'm so young." Buffy stage whispered to Spike, who nodded and squared his shoulders.

"I don't remember it, but I'm sure I've charmed a few mums in my time. I'll jus' have to prove I can keep her little girl in the manner to which she's accustomed. Soon's we find out what that manner is. Bugger, that's an issue." Spike frowned. "I've got to get a job."

"Oh, please." Giles groaned. "Not now. Please, let's not worry about anything else for the rest of the night, I beg of you. We have enough to do with warning your mother and finding you two a safe place to spend the night."

"Hotels are nice." Buffy said innocently.

"Well, last night you two got the last room, and if the hotel is still running renovations then-" Giles trailed off at the sight of Buffy's rapidly darkening face and Spike's amused smile as they realized he'd incriminated himself. "I'm going to go call your mother. Stand ready." He rushed for the phone. Xander rushed with him.

"You mean you weren't on watch duty last night?" Xander hissed. "I was sleeping soundly, knowing Buff was safe from Evil Undead over there!"

"Take it up with the staff. They had no vacancies." Giles dialed, not wanting to have this conversation, and definitely not wanting to think about the ramifications of leaving Spike and Buffy alone all night in room with nothing to distract themselves.

"I'm gonna hurl. If I think about him- with her-" Xander bolted from the room, suddenly a light green.

"Well, that's one way to handle it." Giles sighed and listened to the ringing.

"Hello?" Joyce sounded breathless.

"Ah, hello, Joyce, it's Rupert Giles."

"Oh, of course, Rupert, how are you?"

"Keeping well, thank you, and yourself?"

"Keeping busy. And well. Is everything okay?"

"Yes. Certainly, In a manner of speaking." He didn't fancy explaining this to Joyce, even a severely watered down version. And he just realized he had no idea what they'd agreed to tell her. Apparently the others had realized that as well, and were watching him anxiously.

"That's good, Rupert, and I don't want to rush, but I have to. I just got a call from my friend in Santa Monica, and if I can get down there by 9:00 I can get a pass into a closed auction event for the weekend. I need to call Buffy and then drive like a mad woman."

"Buffy's here." Giles said quickly and motioned her over. Buffy balked, and Spike pulled her along.

"You can do this." Spike whispered. "It's your mum. Be glad she's still around to talk to." He met her eyes, leaving a world of regret, that he had no family, unspoken. She stiffened her spine and took the phone.

"Hi. Mom." Buffy choked out.

"Oh, hi, Sweetie. I have to dash, but I wanted to call you first, so this is perfect. Gail- you remember Gail?"

"Uh- yeah." Buffy swallowed a wave of emotions. _This is my mother. A woman who loved me my whole life, and whispered stories to me, sang lullabies, and nursed me through broken hearts- the first thing I'm going to have in my "mom" bank is a conversation where I lie and she rushes._ "Yeah, Gail."

"There's a closed auction, only 200 seats, and Gail tipped me off there are ten left and they're holding them until 9:00. I've got to fly! It's the Luciano Auction in Santa Monica, if you need me. I'm staying with Gail. I'll be back Tuesday, okay, Baby?"

"Okay." She said softly.

"Are you okay, Sweetie? Is something wrong? Why did Giles call?" Her mother's voice was full of maternal concern suddenly.

_I have to keep her safe, right? Getting her out of the area is safe. _"I'm fine, Mom. I just- miss you. Um. He just wanted to say hi."

"That's nice. And if you'd come home and visit your old mom sometimes, I'd like that, you know."

"I will. I'll be a better daughter, I swear." Buffy gripped the phone, making this promise to all the spirits who might hear her and intervene._ You give me back memories of my mother and I cross my heart, hope to die, I'll make some good new ones._

"Oh, Buffy. You're so sweet. We'll spend some time together soon. You be careful. And- please, for goodness sake, _listen_ to Mr. Giles when he tries to help you!"

"I will, Mom." Buffy felt a tickle of amusement. _I must be some head strong girl._

"I better run. Love you!"

"I love you, too." Buffy murmured, and pressed a hand to the lump in her throat as she hung up.

"Slayer?" Spike whispered.

"I miss my mom." Buffy cracked, and Spike led her to the couch.

"Give us a minute!" Spike snapped when the others merely stared in mute sympathy. Nodding, abashed the others moved away, trying not to watch Spike murmur and rock Buffy as she let out a sob of frustration.

"You know, for evil, and undead, he's a really good boyfriend." Anya appraised.

"I'll remember that the next time he threatens to kill Xander and but a bottle through my face into my brain." Willow hissed.

Spike flinched. He didn't hear all of what they said. But he heard "threatens" and "through my face". He pulled Buffy more tightly to himself, as much for her comfort as his own. _What've I done? An' am I gonna lose her when she remembers it?_

When Buffy calmed herself, Giles resumed his command post. "So, Joyce is out of town for a long weekend. At least she's safe from any awkward questions or strangers trying to search for you. Now we just need to find a place for you two to stay for the time being. And don't say hotels. If it's the only option we'll take it, but paying for several days worth of hotels is going to exhaust your funds, and as I'm currently unemployed- well, my savings are at your disposal if truly needed, but-"

"But wait until the shit properly hits the fan?" Spike understood. "Right, save it while you can. We'll kip here- oh. No, that's right, away from you lot."

"You could do the hidden in plain sight trick. That works in detective stories." Anya spoke up.

"Is that something I should know? I'm gonna feel stupid if that's like basic reading stuff and I don't know it." Buffy asked, looking around the room.

"No, it's a plot device when the object is hidden in an obvious location, so obvious the seeker doesn't look there for it. Edgar Allen Poe wrote a famous example, a valuable document was missing and was being searched for, and a clever man hid it inside a torn up old envelope and left it carelessly on his mantle. No one found it until the brilliant protagonist- right I'm rambling." Giles coughed with a blush.

"An' how do you propose to hide us where they'd never look because it's too obvious?" Spike turned to Anya.

"Stay at Buffy's house."

"What?" Xander and Willow cried.

"If you think someone is _hiding_ from you, you assume they won't be in expected places. So Riley and company probably won't check Buffy's room or Buffy's house. Plus, if your Mom is away, it makes the house look empty. All you have to do is keep it looking that way while you stay there, and you're completely safe, in plain sight." Anya nodded briskly. "See? Simple."

"That might well work." Spike said after looking to Buffy, who shrugged. Anya beamed.

"I'll stay as well. There's plenty of room." Giles said quickly.

"Um. Giles? Won't they think it's suspicious, if you're not here if they come looking for you? Won't they think you're like- hiding something if you suddenly disappear?" Willow hated to mention it.

"Damn." He said heatedly in a low hiss.

"I thought the plan to deal with these army goons was to act completely innocent, play dumb, and avoid at all costs?" Xander spoke up.

"That was the plan." Anya agreed firmly. "Unless you're Spike and Buffy, especially Spike, because he might as well have one of those red and white target things on his head." Spike gave her a withering glare. "It's true!" Anya glared right back.

"I don't like it. But I suppose- I suppose it's a good measure for tonight. I am going in with you, however. At least to make sure you get settled. It may be your home, Buffy, but it's going to look unfamiliar."

"Believe me. I know." She said bitterly.

"Might help though, Slayer. That quack at the hospital said familiar places and objects might help stir things up, even if it won't all come back in a blindin' flash."

"We could try hitting Spike on the head with a big mallet. That always works in the movies." Xander flashed a wicked smile in Spike's direction.

"The doctor was very clear about that being on the no-no list." Buffy shook her head, trying not to grin.

"Ooh! Familiar stuff! I got some photo albums, and our yearbook. But, we probably don't have to look at them right now." Willow's excitement rose and fell in an instant.

"Let's give Joyce at least half an hour to get out the door. She said she was in a hurry. If she's anything like you, Buffy, she'll be about an hour late." Giles smiled and turned away. "I'm going to pack up some blood for tonight and tomorrow, in case you have to hole up in Buffy's house. Willow, will you come with us? I can run you by your parents' to get your laptop."

"Sounds like a plan." Willow rooted around in her messenger bag and sat beside Buffy. Xander and Anya slid the coffee table back and sat on the floor in front of her. Spike remained with his arm around her and looked on as Willow and Xander, with occasional help from Anya, gave Buffy a guided tour of memories via photographs and a signed yearbook.

Buffy decided the doctor at the ER should be shot. _Look at familiar things. Fine. Shove needles under my fingertips, too, why don't you? _It was torture. Her friends were laughing and giggling and talking a mile a minute and explaining what happened at this day on the beach, or that picnic, or that dance, throwing out names, Cordelia, Oz, Jonathan, Harmony, Faith, Wesley, and she didn't know _any_ of them. She felt so lost, in her own life. And each time they'd look up at her so hopefully- and she'd let them down. Not only that, but the conversation was full of odd jerks and pauses. Like all of the people they mentioned were really not supposed to be mentioned. _Is my life really happy, or really terrible? Why do people keep secrets from me about my own life? Am I- am I going to wake up one morning and remember that all of them died in a car accident and I survived, or something like that? Did they not make it out of the school when it blew? Did_ I _do something to them?_ It was scary not knowing, and it was almost more frightening when she thought what she could find out. She couldn't bring herself to demand answers, though.

_These fools. They're killin' her. Can't they tell? Look at her, all the fire's out of her eyes. It's too much. Too much, too soon. Maybe I'm better off. I don't know a thing, but no one's danglin' my life in front of my face sayin' I can look, but not touch._ "I think Slayer's headache is back. Isn't it, Luv?" Spike intervened casually, subtly.

Buffy nodded gratefully. "If I just close my eyes for a little bit?" She asked hopefully.

"Of course. Poor Buffy." Willow stroked her arm comfortingly. "Don't you worry. We'll look at the rest later, and we'll find more things. Your house has tons of albums in the living room. You can see your whole life if you want!"

"Great." Buffy said with forced cheer. Spike winked at her and she felt her heart lift slightly.

"Shall we go then?" Giles asked as Willow shut the photo album. Everyone nodded. "We'll stagger our departures then. Anya and Xander, you go first."

"Xander is going to come back to my place tonight. He's going to protect me." Anya smiled broadly and took his hand lovingly. Xander blushed, coughed and muttered goodnight as he left.

Juggling Spike's borrowed suitcase and Buffy's duffle, plus the supply of blood, the others waited ten minutes, and then Giles went out. When he didn't scream or come back in at a run, the rest followed a minute after, Willow locking the door with the spare key.

Crammed in the car, Willow was dropped off first, assuring them that her parents would be only to happy to drive her back to campus, and hinting that she might stay the night, wanting to feel safe in her own childhood bed. The others could understand that, and they left her once she was safely inside.

Giles parked at the bottom of the driveway and a little way back. "Find your keys?"

"I have them. I don't actually know which one is the house key though." Buffy pointed out. Giles took the keys and peered at them for a moment.

"This one." He handed the key back to her. "When we get out, act casual. Once inside, don't turn on lights until we make sure all the curtains are drawn. We must keep this place in blackout condition if we want it to look like you mother isn't home, and you aren't either."

"Got it." Buffy hissed. "Should we synchronize our watches or something?"

"Honestly." Giles huffed.

'Sorry. I joke when I'm nervous. Don't I?"

"Yes." Both men said, and exchanged a look.

"She's mouthy. I know that." Spike shrugged.

"God, I'll be glad when this is over." Giles sighed. "Alright. Here we go, casual, and...move."

Spike rolled his eyes but obeyed, following nonchalantly on Buffy's heels, Giles bringing up the rear. At the front door, Buffy fumbled with the lock, then pushed the door in. Once all three were inside, Giles shut it and locked it. After a cursory inspection of the living room, Giles lowered his hand. "We're fine."

Joyce had left on a small lamp in the living room, and based on the view from outside, Giles said Joyce's room also had a small light burning. All the drapes and blinds were closed except for the kitchen. Spike took care of that blind and Giles pronounced the house "blackout safe".

Buffy just stood still, her eyes roving over the photo portraits on the wall. "She's pretty." She said at last.

"Your mother is a lovely woman." Giles said warmly.

"Lovely." Spike echoed sincerely. "See where you get it, Slayer." He nudged her with his elbow, watching her sad smile brighten slightly.

"I'll put the blood in the fridge and make sure there are some basics in case you get hungry. And do keep hydrated!"

"Yes, father." Spike mocked.

"I- I feel like I shouldn't touch anything. Like I'm wandering around in some stranger's house." Buffy stretched her hand out to the couch, but didn't touch it.

"I know. I know, Pet, but we don't have tons of options, yeah? So we make do. Could be back in a cave." He traced his thumb over her lips. "You know what you can touch?"

"You?" She sighed at his indefatigable efforts on her behalf.

"Yes. One thing you know is truly your own, no matter where you go."

"You always make me feel better." Buffy slid into his arms with a long kiss. A sharply cleared throat interrupted them.

"I'm going to check upstairs. There's plenty in the way of food and the phone is just inside the kitchen doorway." He paused. "Buffy- you do know how to cook. You made a very nice turkey dinner recently. However- don't try anything fancy in here. Please." Giles turned on his heel and went up the stairs.

"What was that for?" Buffy pouted.

"I think he meant he doesn't want your mum to come home an' find the house burned down. Stick to the simple stuff." Spike taunted. She slugged his arm, and he pushed her arm playfully. She stumbled slightly, before he caught her wrist. "Still off balance?"

She nodded, then stopped with a small wince. "It still hurts. But it's so much less than it used to be, I can't even complain." Buffy shrugged. He nodded his agreement, hand lightly rubbing the back of his neck.

"Come up, you two. I think you'll have some work to do Buffy, before you can sleep in your bed tonight."

Buffy and Spike made their way up the steps, following Giles' voice to a medium sized room done in white and lavender. The blinds and white drapes were pulled closed, and a single lamp on the dresser lit the room. The room was filled with boxes and laundry baskets.

"It seems Joyce is making good use of your room since you're not in it." Giles tried to speak lightly. It was killing him, watching her look around with empty eyes. Eyes that used to laugh and goad and flare. Eyes that would sink into languid warmth when she was relaxed at home, or in the library with him. Now, in her own room, she stood stiffly like a guest waiting for the host to explain the amenities.

"I guess she is. She's an artist?"

"She owns a very successful small art gallery." Giles corrected. "She often goes on buying trips."

"Okay. She won't mind if I'm here?" She started guiltily. "I mean, of course she won't mind if I'm here. I'm her daughter."

"Buffy- everyone loves you. It will be fine, in time, just- just take it at your pace, and we'll try not to push."

"Thank you." She said, more out of politeness and because she couldn't leave the sentence hanging than because she felt thankful.

The Watcher patted Buffy's shoulder once more, and took a step back, surveying the hollow eyed girl, and the vampire who seemed to be genuinely concerned for her. Spike stood beside her, lightly stroking her arm. Giles was unable to believe that he was once again leaving these two to share a night of intimacies. He'd wracked his brain for the last few hours to try and find another solution to prevent it, even in the midst of all the pandemonium. Short of drugging Spike- which bridal Buffy would object to, or forbidding it as her sort of guardian- which Buffy would throw right back in his face, he hadn't come up with any new ideas. "Spike? Is there any point in my showing you the other bedrooms?" Giles asked wearily,

"Not really." He smirked.

"Buffy?" Giles checked her reaction.

"Very not really."

Well, at least some of the laughter and liveliness had come back to her eyes and voice when she refused him. That was something. "Then walk me down. I'll be here at 9:30 tomorrow and we'll regroup. If I'm asked, I'll say I've come to water the plants and collect the mail." Giles explained.

"Thank you for all you help." Buffy hugged him swiftly as he prepared to leave the front door.

"Anything for you." Giles stroked her hair once, and left. He remained on the porch until he heard all the locks click behind him, and then he hurried to the car, relieved that no one was watching him or following him. So far, safe.

Buffy turned and walked slowly up the stairs, traveling more quickly when Spike's smiling face greeted her at the landing.

"Rough day?" He said simply.

"Make it better?" She pleaded.

"I promise." He kissed her forehead and lead her back to her room.

Being in a house that she should know intimately but remembered nothing about left Buffy feeling more cold and afraid inside than she had in the hotel, or even in the blackness and primitive setting of the cave.

"This is my room. And it isn't." She said in a hollow voice. "There's all this stuff in it- like I didn't even exist." She and Spike moved packing boxes and piles of laundry out of the way of the bed.

"Your Mum just stored things in it for a bit. Not to worry." Spike soothed.

"I'm going insane. Nothing reminds me. The pictures, the house, the phone call! Nothing, not even flashes this time! I'm so tired, and it hurts, and nothing." She shoved an empty box to the far corner angrily. "I'm being a brat, because it's the same for you. It's worse, no one's helping you remember- but no- maybe it isn't worse because it's so frustrating! Nothing reminds me, Spike!" She clutched his rumpled shirt and shook it, her fists curling in the loose gray fabric, her tirade ending in a half sob.

"Hey, hey now. I'll remind you. I'll make this place yours." He placed his hands over hers. "Sit on the bed with me Slayer, an' I'll tell you another chapter of our story."

She sniffled. "It's not true."

"We can make it true in our minds. It can be true for now." He knew she was hurting, and he knew she was aware of his pain, the way she stroked his face and his hands, always some little comfort.

"You're brave. And you're wonderful to me." She whispered. _He must feel even more empty than me. This isn't his home town- well- as far as anyone can tell. No one knows anything about him, he's a vampire for God's sakes! He's missing more years, more life than me. And there isn't anything we can do for him. _But she wouldn't baby him. He had his pride, he had his tough facade to maintain.

"You're good to me, too, Luv." He nestled them into a cocoon of blankets and pillows, on top of the sheets, not under, dressed except for their shoes. "Now, what part of Slayer and Spike's life d'you want to hear about?"

She looked up at him, watched the smoky blue eyes adoring her, the lips smiling faintly as they took her in. She felt her skin getting hot. Even though she felt broken and confused inside, she was longing for him to touch her and make love to her, give her some sense of wholeness. The two of them, being one. Her hands trailed slowly up the back of his shirt. "First I want a kiss."

"Happy to help." He grinned, and bent his head to taste her lips, sucking the lower lip between his, grating it softly with his teeth, encouraging her to do the same, bite him just a little. When she applied more pressure, it just felt so good. She nipped at his tongue suddenly, and he felt like a live wire ran from his cock to his throat, lighting him up inside. "God, Slayer..." He trailed off, lost for a minute. "Make it hard for a man to tell you anything but how much he wants to fill your hot little body with himself." He stroked her hair insistently, fingers digging into the satin of her waist when his hands finished their downward journey.

"Then tell me about their first time." She whispered, blushing, knowing she was leading him to lovemaking and derailing his story, and not caring.

"It was here. In this room." He decided, slipping into his storytelling mode.

"Here?" She sounded vaguely discontent with that setting.

"Yes. Here." He said firmly. "You want this place to be yours? You'll see why this place is very special to you an' me."

_That's so sweet of him, He's trying to give me memories about this place. Filling up the emptiness. God, I want him in my emptiness right now. _She shifted and nodded, pressing to him.

"You turned on?" Spike asked suddenly.

"I'm lying in bed with the man I love. Yes." She glared at him reproachfully, as if it should be obvious.

"Wow. Vampires can smell that. I mean- I knew I recognized the scent, but oh." He grinned wickedly, pleased that something in his tangled mind was speaking to him, instincts or memories, human or vampire. "Slayer's good enough to eat." He snapped his teeth shut, and she shivered pleasantly.

"Eat?" Oh._ Eat_. Her breath got faster as she pictured his blonde head bobbing between her legs. "No one ever did that. Before. I mean- before you." She stammered, unsure how she knew, but positive it was true. Positive she'd never felt something like that, and yet knowing with Spike she must have already experienced it.

"Well, tonight I'll remind you why you gave me the privilege." He kissed her gently, and felt her hands start to fumble on his belt. "I'm findin' it seriously hard to get on with my story, Luv."

"You can tell me while we explore." She grinned impishly.

He groaned and closed his eyes to concentrate. "Slayer an' Spike'd been dancin' around each other for ages. But they had this thing, they always came back to each other. An' one night he had enough. He said, 'Slayer, you're the only girl who holds my interest. Only one I can love, an' I do. I do, I've fallen in love in the midst of our fights, an' our gang wars, an' whenever we actually managed to go out on dates'."

"Dancing at the Bronze." She supplied in a sneaky whisper, working the belt free completely.

"Yes, dancin' an' the rest of it. Now, what'd she say to that?"

"She said, 'Oh, Spike, I love you, too. It doesn't matter that your gang is my gang's rival, or that we beat each other up, or even that you're a vampire. There's something abnormal about me, too, but if you want to jump into a Romeo and Juliet thing- without the dying part- you can have me'. Only less corny sounding. I hope to God." She chuckled into his chest, looking up at him with teasing eyes.

"It was perfect, I'm sure. So- after a long romantic dinner, with no fightin', Spike asked that age old question, 'your place or mine?' An' the beautiful girl said her place was safe an' private 'cause her mum was off someplace lookin' at art for her museum-"

"Gallery."

"Oh fine, gallery." Spike paused as his zipper was fully undone, and a soft, warm hand embraced his hardness. With a sharp tug, he undid her own zipper and wormed his way across her panty clad center. Smiling in mutual satisfaction, that he made her wet as she made him hard, he continued. "They went to her house, and were barely able to hold off until they reached the bedroom. This very room, which did not have packin' crates an' flotsam all over it that time, an' they made the place beautiful."

"With candles, and a cd of soft, pretty music."

"Bloody hell. Yes, soft pretty music. No- soft, poundin' music. With an edge."

"But I-" She pouted, about to complain over the choice in music.

"Don't you go all soft on me, girl." He warned playfully.

"You like me soft. Don't you?" She arched her hips towards him hesitantly, as if she wasn't used to offering her body up to her lovers. Like she expected him not to treat it with love and reverence. It was just a small gesture, but Spike promised himself he would love her so well tonight that he'd never see that gesture again.

"You are my beautiful, soft angel." He murmured, slipping a finger along the edge of her panties, stroking the wetness along her outer lip. "You might not remember, but you're precious to me. An' you'll always be that way, You might be my Slayer, but you're my everything good an' kind in this world. Don't forget that. _Know_ that." And _he_ knew it. She was, to him, the symbol for good. He didn't fully know why, because from what he could see and remember, she was a hardcore fighter and not afraid of anything, not something soft and snowy pure. But there it was. This girl equalled good. And damn, after whatever strange hell he'd had in his forgotten life, he decided he wanted something, someone, simply good.

"Spike..." Her throat closed up and she shook her head with a teary smile. _I'm someone's everything. It doesn't matter if I never remember what I was, I know what I _am_._ Her voice strengthened and she picked up the tale. "They had really hot, romantic music. Music that made them crazy for each other."

"They were already crazy for each other." Spike reminded her, hands reluctantly leaving her pussy to travel up the front of her shirt.

"They undressed each other, slowly." She giggled softly as his hands traced her ribs.

"Like this, Pet?" He smirked, hands bringing her shirt over her head.

"Like this." She lifted his shirt as well, admiring his taut, sculpted muscles.

"An' once he had her completely undressed, he started worshippin' every inch of her." He circled his mouth on her neck, sliding over her throat, over her scars, down the gully of her cleavage. Her moans made it impossible to think of the rest of the story, and as long as he licked, she moaned. He stopped just as his mouth was about to plunder a bra clad breast. "She's the most gorgeous thing he's ever seen, an' he never wants anyone else."

"He's the most handsome man in the world." She agreed, and started her own slow teasing nibble across his throat and his shoulders, little hands grasping and pushing herself up so she could claim him with her sweet kisses.

"Probably right about- ooh hell, yes- then was when he decided he couldn't bear it anymore."

"Bear what?"

"The fact that she wasn't his yet. An' he said, 'Slayer, you have to be jus' for me. Not sharin' this beautiful body with anyone else.' So he marked her as his. He bent down between those pink gates to paradise and drank her sweet juice, and then slid himself in- nice an' slow of course."

"Of course. At first. Until the Slayer said 'If you want to make me yours, you have to mean it!'." A spark lit up her eye. "Which is what he did because he was such a good lover and he was a big believer in giving women what they asked for."

"Hmm." He chuckled. "Did she have bruises the next day?"

"Only where it counts." She grinned. "And not nearly as bad as the scratches he had all over every part of his back and his chest, and the bites he had on his neck and his lips."

"Oh, you got your own share of bites. Probably dipped my fangs in, too. I did want to mark you. An' you _are_ marked." He caressed her bites, and she shuddered under his touch, eyes closing and mouth opening in a soft, pouting gasp.

"Then what happened?" She breathed. His head was between her breasts again, and his hands were forcing her jeans down over the soft cheeks of her round rear.

"He asked if she felt the same." He hesitated.

"She did. She wanted all of him, and she wasn't sharing. She doesn't share well anyway."

"When he heard they were done this game, this leavin' and fightin' and not bein' together game, he ravished her all night long. He made her cum a dozen times with his mouth and his cock and his fingers, an' he filled up her belly with sweet sticky cum an' told her she was never gonna be on her own again. Then they either ordered pizza or fell asleep in each other's arms."

"Or both."

"I'm bettin' on both. All night lovemakin' fests usually require a lot of energy."

"Can we do a reenactment?" Buffy asked as he finished with a smile.

"Oh, yes." He shifted his hips up for a moment and together they tugged them down, kicking them off the bed. He undid her bra with a practiced snap, and then went for her panties, which ripped at the leg as he pulled. "Oh, bloody hell! I'm sorry." He seemed puzzled that that had happened.

"It's okay. You're really strong, remember?" She caressed his arms, running her hands lovingly over his muscles.

"Gotta be strong for my girl." He agreed, and carefully rolled her onto her back. "So this feels new?" He traced a finger across her slightly swollen lips. She nodded, breathing suddenly coming in puffs, not slow steady streams. "I'm sure it isn't, Pet. You smell so delicious, an' the little tastes I had of you on my fingertips are like heaven on skin. I know I couldn't have left this alone before."

"I know. I'm just being silly." She laughed off her sudden shyness as his kisses trailed across her golden skin, between her thighs.

_She's a masterpiece. And so much more vibrant than the others. With their paler tones, their barely alive temperature. _Spike realized with a jolt his other lovers must have been vampires and he shook his head once, gently, to take the half formed thought away. _Just enjoy this, this is yours for the rest of your life. Savor this, the first time you remember tasting her sweet honey._ His tongue darted out, and licked the seam of her lips until they spread, and then he flicked slowly over all the newly exposed pinkness.

Buffy thought she was going to die or scream, and she didn't want to do either. She sat halfway up and clawed his hair, whimpering. "You are doing this every time from now on, okay? _Okay_?" She demanded in a harsh pant, eyes rolling up in ecstasy.

"I promise. I promise an' I swear. God, Slayer, you want me to take a blood oath, I will." He moaned against her delicious entryway. He wasn't heading inside her yet though. He wanted it to open for him, not for him to roughly intrude. He wanted her so wet that her sweet slit gaped in invitation. Of course, she was a tight little lover, and he could help her along...

His hand pressed her mound, and his thumb fumbled over her nub for one electrifying second. Buffy shuddered in pleasure and then relaxed, only to start one long shudder again as his tongue started to slide and dance over her bead. Her sudden shout surprised them both, and he clamped his mouth over her pussy as it trembled in orgasm. "That's one." He grinned up at her with a wet, satisfied smile. "Now, how many d'you think you want before I have my turn?" He pumped his length slowly, once.

"One more?" She asked with a mischievous smile, not wanting to be selfish, wanting to return the favor.

"You are a generous girl." He winked and returned, this time his tongue slipping smoothly inside and dancing sinfully until she came again.

He rolled back, patting her wetness with a fond hand, and looked at her appraisingly. "You're the sweetest thing I ever tasted, Luv."

"Thank you." She blushed.

"You don't remember doin' this before either?" He hazarded, as she slowly kissed from his jaw to his thigh.

"I'm sure I'll learn. It's easy when you love someone." She rubbed her cheek against his cock like a cat caressing a leg. He smiled and sighed. She pressed a hesitant kiss on his crown and a few more on his shaft. "Am I doing this right?"

"You are doing it perfectly." He praised. He'd like more, but he figured praising her was the best way to ensure that happened. He was right. Her tongue, just the tip, came out and traced the length, then the edge of the crown, and he bucked up into her mouth. "You're gonna kill me, Luv. Sweetest type of death there is, I guess."

She sighed and engulfed him. "You ain't seen nothin' yet." She smiled up at him, green eyes sparkling in the glow of the single small lamp. "I love you, Spike."

"Oh, Christ." He groaned, and that panted weakly as she turned the full force of her suctioning softness on him. "I love you too, Slayer. Oh, God, Slayer, Buffy." He gasped out.

Her head bounced off of him at the use of her given name. She crawled suddenly up beside him, until her head rested by his. "Can I come back to that later?"

"Sure, of course." He sounded perplexed. "Did somethin' upset you?"

"No. Everything feels right. I just really wanted my husband-to-be making love with me right now, and I couldn't wait another second to have him inside me." She caressed his cheek with delicate fingertips.

_Husband-to-be. Blimey. That's- that's just _wonderful_._ "I never keep a lady waiting." He whispered, rolling on top of her.

_To Be Continued..._


	6. Chapter 6

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Notes: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Dedicated to Idiosyncratic Delusions, Lithium Reaper, DLillith21, and GoodfortheSoul_

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_Major wordiness- a lot happens. Light on the smut, heavy on plot movement and explanations._

_Thank you for your support! __**This story has been nominated at The Sunnydale Memorial Fanfiction Awards,**__ (located at /indexdothtml) in the following categories: _

_Best New Author, Best Drama, Best Pairing Conventional, Best Unfinished_

_**If you like it, please go vote for it!**_

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part VI

"Wow." Buffy collapsed on sweat soaked sheets and sucked in a mouthful of air.

"Was that an even dozen?" Spike chuckled softly.

"I couldn't count." She rolled her aching body against his, even though she was too hot to snuggle. "Oooh, you are prefect." She clung to him appreciatively.

"So you said. Loudly. An' often."

"This time because you're cool. As in temperature cool. I'm all hot and fever-y, and here you are." She nuzzled her cheek to his damp pectorals. "Like a cool washcloth. Only not wet and made of cotton."

"God, I do love you. Don't think anyone but you could make me laugh in the midst of this bloody torment we're goin' through." Spike's laugh made his chest ripple and Buffy bit her lip.

"It is not possible to get so turned on so many times in a row." She piled her tangled hair on top of her head and giggled when Spike rolled her to her side to blow his cool breath on her neck.

"Sure it's possible. We're super strong. We got the stamina. But it's more than that." Spike licked his lips. He'd spent too long noticing her front and now he was getting to watch her back. Gold. Soft, silky gold skin and a perfectly cuppable, bitable set of cheeks.

"So what is it?'

"Humm?" He forgot everything but the curve of her spine and the tease of pink that showed between her cheeks when she stretched one leg forward.

"You said we're strong and have stamina but it isn't just that. What else is it?" She rolled all the way onto her stomach and turned her flushed face to look at him.

"Oh. Oh! It's 'cause we have two years of love makin' to make up for."

"We met two years ago. That doesn't mean-"

"Hush now." Spike prodded the side of her breast as it pressed to the bed. "As far as I'm concerned, two years of catch up sex is in order. If I didn't start lustin' after you the minute I saw you, well, I was a fool. That's the bright side of this I s'pose. For a little bit I get to pretend I wasn't a fool an' that I knew a good thing when I saw it."

"You're so bad." She reached out and pulled his head to hers. "You make it sound like it was all your fault. If we didn't jump each other right away, it was mutual, I'm sure. I was probably too stupid to notice how sexy you were under all the scowling."

"I don't scowl, do I?"

"Yes. You do, and you're sarcastic and pushy. But I love you." She smiled. Spike moved his body against hers, his chest to her side, his hand trailing lazily up and down her spine, making her shiver. And eventually it started going lower, focusing on her bottom, and then between her cheeks, a finger slowly pushing into her pussy from behind. "More?"

"Not if you're tired. We can do it after some sleep." He promised.

"I can't get enough of you." She confessed and started to roll on to her back.

"No. Stay like this."

"Face down?"

"Don't think of it as face down. I love to see your face. I just also happen to have neglected my pre-husbandly duty to this goddamn fine backside."

"Think of it as buns up, is that what you're trying to say?" She giggled, provocatively wiggling her cheeks.

He nodded, a sensuous chuckle spreading from his chest across her skin as he kissed her soft shoulders while he laughed.

_I didn't know my back was so sensitive. Well, duh, I didn't know a lot of stuff. I bet a lot of guys don't take time to_ - Buffy's coherent thoughts died away abruptly. The kisses stopped being soft presses and were open-mouthed, tongue swirling, skin squelching kisses now. Like he wanted to consume her. All across her shoulders, then down her spine, her cheeks and hips, and then finally his hands pushed upwards on the backs of her thighs.

"Jus' for a minute." He murmured, and watched her fold up on herself, putting her rear at chest hight. "You said I had do somethin' in particular every time, is that right?"

Buffy blushed. "Yes."

"Was it this?" His tongue swept the length of her cleft and invaded her love swollen folds and then her entrance.

"Yes! Yes, just like that, oh God!"

"An' now you can lay back down." He patted her rump lightly and watched her flatten trustingly to the bed. He slid his hands up until his palms flattened on either side of her slim upper torso, just under her shoulders, just above her breasts. He slid his hands in closer, thumbs brushing the small, firm sides of her bust.

It was amazing and comforting, and a really, really good angle, Buffy decided immediately when her fiance penetrated her in a long slow thrust. His crown unfailingly grazed the over sensitized pad of flesh on her upper wall, and his lukewarm abdominal muscles pressed lovingly to her overheated lower back.

"You can move with me, Slayer. Two party ride." He whispered in her ear. And the world started to spin happily. Cheeks bumping him and trapping him, and her frantic little grunts as she pushed her mound back and up at an angle, wanting her pink pearl to feel the sway of his sack on every thrust. "Sleep is over rated." Spike groaned.

"So totally agree!" Buffy forced her shoulders up and tugged his arms underneath her. "You won't crush me. Hold me like this." She urged.

Wrapped together tightly, painfully deep inside her, they writhed as one, a long bell curve of bliss in second intervals, until they came as one, hoarse shout and piercing cry of satisfaction echoing in the still house.

"Not alone. Not empty." Buffy murmured, locking her hands on his wrists as they rolled to the side. She never wanted him to let go, not even to change positions. They remained spooned together, their combined essence leaking out of them in a slow trickle.

"No matter what. Not alone. You an' me, Slayer." He nodded drowsily into her hair.

"Just the two of us, no matter what." She agreed, and finally gave into sleep.

Buffy's eyes opened in the filmy glow of daylight. _Nice- if unusual- hotel. Why would they have posters of bands instead of landscape pictures? Oh, and joy. Headache is no longer anything but pin prickles up my neck and behind my eyes. _Buffy sat up slowly and eased out from beside Spike. She blinked as she stood and shivered, naked and confused. _Oh, right. This isn't a hotel, it's my mother's house. That means that the bathroom isn't in the room, like a hotel, and I have to go find it._

Spike's mind came awake slowly. He reached beside him, looking for the warm loving form that curled up beside him. Not there. Hie eyes flew open and he stared straight up at a stark white ceiling.

His mind hurtled back suddenly. Not white ceiling, white lights, painfully bright, electric cages. He was irate, caged, screaming, angry, scared, alone, and the _pain. _Soon the pain and the hunger would drive him mad. But he'd escaped- someone's voice told him, a shaggy looking vamp told him how- he got away. He got away before they killed him. He'd been so desperate he didn't know what he was doing, just had to get out before they could hurt him again. His hands clutched the back of his skull, feeling for a scar that wasn't there anymore. _But it was real. It was real, the bastards caged me. _Me!_ An' they want me again..._

Buffy heard the wrenching, choking gasp with her sensitive hearing, and she bolted, running bare foot, turning the wrong way out of the bathroom, was confronted with the stairs, and then racing into her room.

"What? Spike! What is it, Baby?" Buffy cleared the distance between the door and the bed with a single spring, and landed with her hands on his shoulders.

"Those army lads. The place, I don't know when, I just know I was there. Baby- I think- I think I killed a doctor when I was tryin' to get out." His face was haggard.

"You fed?"

"No, I- I don't remember the how, I remember the body lyin' on the ground. We can't let them get us. Can't let 'em have you. Not in a cage. Not in a cage."

She nodded silently, mouth drying out, leaving her unable to vocalize for a few seconds. If there was one things she felt sure of, it was that it took a lot to make Spike crack, and he sounded hysterical. And she felt mounting hysteria herself. For the first time this seemed really serious. They could not only take away her memories, basically all the meaning in her life- but they could put her in a cell, some little box for something she couldn't help, maybe something she was born with. She felt sick to her stomach with fresh dread. She remembered her reaction to the small spaces in the cave. The fear of being confined. She couldn't survive caged. And neither could he.

"I'm all right now." Spike said solemnly after a moment. She nodded mutely again. "Sorry. Know that panic doesn't help, but-"

"Hey." She looked into his eyes. "That's enough to make anyone panic."

She hadn't spoken after he admitted that he'd killed. He knew of course, that he probably had if he was a vampire and he fit the stereotype. But he didn't think he fit. He had a human lover, he got his blood from willing donors or the butcher shop. Maybe she hadn't wanted to believe it, in spite of the conversations they'd had, the "what you might have done" and "what you won't do again" types of conversations. "I'm sorry if I killed that man." He finally whispered. "I was panicked, an' I- I am what I am. There's instincts to kill an' feed. Everyone eats."

"Did you eat?" She blinked. She hadn't even been worried about that. She was still locked in claustrophobia terror.

"I don't think so. I'm not positive, but I think I just ran." He met her eyes with a world of unspoken questions.

"If I had to get out of a place where they were- holding me hostage- and experimenting on me-" her voice cracked and she shuddered, "I think I'd do anything to get free."

"You wouldn't hurt-"

"Spike. I don't know what I would do if the alternative was going back to a cage to wait until they killed me. I do think I would go down fighting."

"I know you would. You're my Slayer."

"Slayer means killer." Buffy realized more fully. Spike tucked his head over top of hers. "Oh God... how'd I earn my nickname?" She whispered.

He thought quickly. "By fightin' the bad things. Your man said so, said you use your powers for good. If you did kill, Luv, you did it for a reason."

She took some comfort from the thought, but intuitively felt that Spike took none. "Snap out of it, Spike." She shook him slightly, and his eyes traveled to hers, startled. "We already promised to forgive each other for the past. You keep your promises and I'll keep mine."

Relief flooded through him. "Right you are. Alright. Back to bein' the man you love and depend on, no more nancy boy."

Even as emotionally wrecked as they both seemed to be, he could bounce back, make her smile. "We should get up then- Nancy."

"Stop that or I'll smack you on your pretty pink behind." Spike growled playfully. He nibbled her neck ferociously and she squirmed as it tickled.

"No, no, come on!" She laughed in protest. "The world is full of horrors and it awaits. I refuse to face horrors without a shower and clean clothes."

"A shower sounds like just the ticket." He leered and pulled her to her feet, trying to push all the painful worries away. The sight of her lithe form, giggling and swaying for him did a lot to help that. "An' after that, let's go downstairs an' see if I know how to cook."

"I'm sure you do." Buffy laced her fingers through his as they walked through the hall, naked and at ease with each other, if not the surroundings.

"We'll see." He scooped her up in one arm and laughed as her petite toes kicked past him and slammed the door shut.

Giles opened the front door, refusing to knock, in case an alert neighbor found it suspicious that the man who claimed to be there to collect the mail and water the plants in the empty house felt the need to request permission to enter. He was deliberately late, because he didn't want to walk in on half dressed people, or worse, completely undressed people. He paused, his eyes tight shut as he walked inside, silently praying. _Dear Father in Heaven, if I could just get through today without seeing anything risque pass between Buffy and Spike, I promise, no more Scotch until New Year's. Amen._

A feminine giggle and a masculine grunt assaulted his ears from the kitchen. "Giles? Is that you?" Buffy called.

Maybe it was innocent giggling, she certainly didn't seem flustered at all. Giles replied, "Yes, it's me." He strode towards the kitchen as Buffy came out of it, Large wet handprints were across the bust portion of her shirt and she was hastily rebuttoning it. Spike walked close behind her- perilously close behind her, and seemed to be purposely bumping his groin to her rear on every step. _Alright, Lord. Have it your way. Maybe you're getting some sort of contribution from the local liquor store._

"Guess what?" Buffy asked, eyes alight.

"What?" Giles asked warily.

"Spike can cook! He makes omelets like nobody's business. At least, we think so. Neither of us can remember eating omelets before today, but that's one of the basic things, right? Like, I mean, I know that was good, my taste buds work." She looked at him nervously. "Right?"

"I'm sure he makes a mean batch of eggs." Giles patted her shoulder, all the ill will temporarily leaving when Buffy looked up at him with those child-like eyes. He hadn't seen that look in ages. The burdens of loss and slaying robbed her of her innocence and her naivete, her adolescence. Not all of it, unlike most slayers, but lots of it. It would be so hard when the memories began to return, but for right now, he loved seeing the rare spark of wonder that appeared in her eyes. She didn't know just yet, how cruel her calling had been to her.

"An' I can clean up after myself. Place is all tidied up, Giles, so what's the plan? Do we lay low here today, or are we heading back to your flat?"

"For now, it's up to the two of you. I think we should all be fairly safe from daylight raids- at least in my block of flats. On the other hand, perhaps being in your home will help you begin to-"

"No. It doesn't." Buffy said quickly. "I'd like to go." When it was just her and Spike, the surroundings didn't matter. If this kindly, but not-quite-seeing-things-her-way man was going to be here, insisting that she try and dredge up memories or look at another hundred pictures of people she knew but didn't remember, she wanted no part of it. "I'll get my things."

"If you'd just open the garage door, dear, I'll drive in, and then you and Spike can get in the back without being seen."

"You might want to help me with the opening the door part." Buffy suggested. "I don't know what key that is, either."

"It's a button on the wall." Giles reminded her gently.

"Oh." Buffy blushed hotly and walked away, only to pause in a few steps. "Which way?"

"Through the kitchen." Giles cursed himself. She nodded and left him.

"She's- the house- it's bigger than your place. Easy to get turned around, an' we jus' used the bed an' bath. An' the kitchen. No explorin'." Spike made an excuse for her, his brow lowering.

"I know, I should have shown her."

"Remember that next time, would you?" Spike asked, voice brittle. "She feels like shit as it is. Don't need the likes of you makin' her feel stupid an' strange in her own home on top of it." Spike went upstairs without a backward glance, presumably to collect their belongings.

If I ever meet those military meddlers, I'll rip their arms off, Giles thought angrily before he went to get his car and play chauffeur again.

Riley spent the earlier part of the morning caving into exhaustion. He realized he hadn't slept in over a day. When he finally woke up and made himself look alive, he knew he had to get some answers from Willow Rosenberg about what she and her friends had been doing in the woods, and what was really wrong with Buffy.

He tried the dorm room where he knew Willow and Buffy resided. No answer. No one he spoke to in their dorm had seen Willow or Buffy last night or this morning. He asked about during the last few nights, and all the replies he received were vague "maybe"s, "I think so"s, and shrugs. Willow wasn't in the section of Walsh's class that met today, so he couldn't hope to corner her there. By the time he thought to pull her course schedule, her last class had finished. Armed with questions, confusion, and the feeling that he was going to end up getting court-martialed by the Initiative or sued for harassment by the civilians, Riley decided to go to the homes of Rupert Giles and Alexander Harris.

"Well, the laundry is in, and you should have clothes that actually fit you properly soon. More blood?" Giles asked Spike solicitously. They had just spent an hour going through photo albums until Buffy claimed she wanted to kill something. That prompted Spike to give him another one of those thunderstorm glares and he eased up. Giles knew he was pushing, but he didn't know how long he could put off telling Buffy certain things. He really would rather she remember events herself than be forced to break the news to her. About slaying. About her destiny. Angel. Spells. Phony magic-induced engagements. And worst of all, telling her that she would have to try to get back out and patrol as soon as possible. How do you tell a girl, who as far as she knows, has never faced anything supernatural in her life that she might have to take on any number of demons and vampires every single week?

"I'm fine, thanks." Spike lost his glare. "You haven't grilled us yet. 'Bout what we remembered, if anything. D'you wanna start that?"

"Oh, yes, excellent." Giles grabbed his pen and paper eagerly. "You talk, I'll try to put it in chronological order with the other events you've mentioned."

Buffy jumped in. "Spike had more than me. I just- I have a lot of memories of Willow being sad and crying, and sitting on a bed. I was there, just the two of us. I know I'm really her friend. I get that feeling way more than I did before. Oh, and I don't know if this is actually worth writing down, 'cause I don't think it's a 'memory', but I have this vague feeling like her breaking up with someone made me and Spike decide to get engaged."

Giles wrote that down. "Hovering around the same time period, a little more clarity, perhaps a little further back than you were yesterday. Good! Good, Buffy."

"Am I right? Willow broke up, and Spike and I got engaged?"

"The events happened near each other, yes. Although Oz didn't break up with Willow, he left her to protect her."

"It was Oz? The little short guy in the photos? He left to protect her from what?" Buffy asked interestedly. Spike also showed a flicker of curiosity and sat up straighter.

"Circumstances beyond his control." Giles said tersely.

"I think that's stupid." Buffy snorted. "What kind of guy leaves a girl and breaks her heart and tells her it's for her own good? That's just insulting, like telling her she's a kid and he has to make the decisions."

A guy like Angel does that, thought Giles with a melancholy smile. No wonder Buffy has such a strong opinion on this._ Dear God, I barely lived through him breaking her heart the first time, now I have to do it again. There isn't enough chocolate in the city..._

"Boy sounds like a wanker. You love a girl, you should fight to stay together. Even if it all looks bloody stupid to everyone else. Shouldn't matter. It's between you an' her, even if you go against the rest of the whole ruddy world."

"Maybe we realized that when Oz left." Buffy leaned into Spike's outstretched arm.

"Must be. Wouldn't want to see my Slayer left on her own."

"You're so good, Lover." Buffy's hands came up and caressed his jaw, pulling his mouth towards hers.

Giles, although finding an amnesiac Spike much more tolerable, and he appreciated his openly sensitive attitude to Buffy's wants and needs, still didn't want to see them making out. "Not to interrupt this touching moment, but I'd like to hear if you remembered anything new, Spike?"

"An' you can't stand to see me with her." Spike muttered, and Buffy elbowed him.

"Just get on with it." Giles said through gritted teeth, trying not to give in to the urge to say anything else.

"Right." Spike ran his fingers through his less carefully kept than usual hair, giving it a ruffled, half-slicked look. It was hard enough talking about this with Buffy who loved him, it was going to be bloody awkward talking to this disapproving old ponce. "It wasn't so much a clear memory. It was some flashes." Buffy slipped her hand into his more securely. His silent, unobtrusive comforter. "The place- the military place. I was in a cell, with bright, bright white lights. An' the walls were electric. Got zapped if you touched 'em." Spike's hands went to the back of his head, an almost unconscious gesture. "My scar is gone an' my hair grew back..."

"Vampires heal very quickly." Giles said gently.

"Another vamp, shaggy lookin' guy, told me how to get out, an' I did. Killed one of the lab techs or a doctor. I think. Gettin' away.I didn't feed on him, I jus' know one minute_ I _was bein' strapped down, an' the next minute _he_ was the one at my feet."

Giles looked startled. Spike didn't sound cocky or proud of his kill, nor did he sound remorseful. But he sounded as though he felt the death was a serious thing. "And this bothers you?"

"It was him or me!" Spike sounded upset.

"I would have done the same thing!" Buffy cried angrily.

"No, Buffy, you'd never kill a human." Giles stopped dwelling on Spike's reaction and corrected Buffy. He knew how she felt about the death of humans, how she had reacted when Faith had killed a man, accidental or not.

"Guess what, Giles- you said to trust my instincts? My instincts say I'll kill anyone who tries to take me to an electrified cage and experiment on me until I die."

Giles was surprised but he supposed he shouldn't be. Buffy was so _good_- but she was no longer _innocent_. Giles mulled over the paradox of this attack and the damage to her memories- it had made her seem more untouched by evil, but yet, more aware of harsh realities. Was nothing in the girl's life allowed to be straightforward? "I suppose survival instincts would challenge what we _prefer_ to do." He finally said. Satisfied with that, Buffy nodded and sat back.

"Now, Spike, do you have any idea, where this falls? In your time line?" Giles knew, of course, but he wanted to see how things were lining up in the vampire's mind.

"Not a bit of it. But it must be after I came here an' got chained up in the bathtub. 'Cause you'd hardly be likely to chain me up like an animal if you knew I was already helpless an' couldn't hurt anyone."

Giles was silent, and Buffy bit her lip. She didn't answer right away. "I don't know what I would do. Giles- would I have done that to someone I knew was helpless?"

"You had a very good reason not to trust Spike when you did it. And it was my decision as well. Not only yours."

"So it was after?" Spike looked like he didn't want to believe that. "God. Must've screwed up bad for you to think you had to cage me again, helpless an' all." He spat bitterly and sank back into the couch.

"Spike-" Buffy began apologetically.

"Save it, Slayer." His voice was hard, but not unkind. "Did I deserve it?" He looked steadily at Giles.

"In my opinion, Spike, perhaps. Perhaps not. But if it helps, we did it because we know how powerful and cunning you are. You could turn any situation to your advantage. An adversary not to be underestimated. A-and it wasn't for long. I promise you that. Only a few days."

"A few DAYS? We kept him-" Buffy got up, too disgusted to speak about it anymore. "I hate this life. I hate this."

"No, Slayer." Spike stood up with her. "Don't hate this life. Alright? I don't regret anything- if it got me you."

Her eyes filled with tears. He'd let himself go through all this, for her. She loved him, and he loved her. "Baby." She made a wet little sound in the back of her throat and launched herself into his arms.

"I'll go put the clothes in the dryer." Giles said softly, and left the embracing pair alone.

Riley Finn set off for Rupert Giles' apartment first. He was dressed in a blue shirt and khakis, although underneath the pants a tactical device belt was strapped to his waist. However, he wasn't going to go in as Initiative man, he was going to go in as concerned graduate student, teacher's assistant man, having heard about Buffy's exemption, unable to find her or her roommate, knowing Giles was a trusted friend, etc. He was determined to be the model of courtesy and respect when he met the former librarian. He was going to come across as a caring young man who was concerned for Buffy, and Willow by extension.

Anya and Willow walked as close together as possible as they headed to Giles'. "You can stop looking over your shoulder. We're in broad daylight and there are mothers pushing babies in strollers and old men walking dogs." Anya tried to soothe Willow. "We're not in danger. Probably."

"I don't care. I'll feel better when I get the laptop to Giles and we can start working."

"I don't understand why you couldn't look up all this stuff last night." Anya grumped.

"Because it took me until two in the morning to crack the first level of encryption. And there are probably at least seven levels." Willow hissed. "Then I slept, then I had class, and now I'm back to being hacker gal, okay?"

"Okay, okay. You need more sleep. You're cranky."

"Having your best friend lose her memory and fall madly in love with a disgusting vampire over night, and then finding out they're all the targets of some secret military operation that your TA is involved in doesn't make for good sleepies, okay?" Willow snapped. "Sorry. I'm sorry, Anya. It was nice of you to walk with me and 'watch my back.' I didn't mean to sound like a big grumpy pants."

"It's okay. Xander's worried, too. He couldn't fall asleep. Even after sex. And that usually makes men fall asleep fast."

"Gaah! Can we not- talk about sex? Between you and Xander, and Buffy having 'I've lost my mind' smoochies with Spike, I'm in a constant state of way bad mental images."

"You shouldn't picture Xander. He's mine."

"I know, I know. _Geez_." Willow rolled her eyes and increased her pace towards Giles' house.

Spike sat Buffy across his lap in front of the open but shadowed living room window, the shrubs outside keeping the sunlight from singeing the vampire. "You just need some fresh air. Maybe somethin' to drink. You want a whiskey? Giles' has some good stuff on the sideboard."

"No." His offer made her smile. "I just want this to be over and I either want to get everything back to normal or forget everything and start a new life."

"I know, Slayer. I know, I'm leanin' that way myself." He sighed.

Riley headed to the front door rehearsing his speech. "Hi, Mr. Giles, you don't know me, but I'm the TA in Buffy Summers' psych class. I need to get a hold of her- no I can't say it like that. Hi, Mr. Giles, do you remember me? We met in the woods the other day- and- and no that won't work either." Riley paused and paced for a moment. Voices, faint but nearby, caught his attention.

"Precious, stop cryin'."

"I'm sorry, I'm just so tired."

"Then we'll rest."

"Not that kind of tired."

Riley crept closer to the noise, pinpointing it as coming from behind the tall pine hedge. Was that Buffy's voice? It was so small, and so pained sounding. That couldn't be the flirty, funny girl that caught his eye.

"Maybe those B vitamins would help?"

"I think time is the only thing that's going to help, Spike."

Spike? The name rang a bell, a vague one, but something tickled the edges of his subconscious. Riley took a breath and pushed aside the branches of the hedge, peering in the window. _This is for the greater good. I should not feel like a dirty little sneak._ That argument didn't work, but he forced himself to do it anyway. He immediately wished he hadn't. Hostile Seventeen was lovingly stroking Buffy's tearful face and pressing his forehead to hers.

That does it. Humans are off limits, but _he's_ fair game. And if she's aiding and abetting, technically she' fair game, too. But if she doesn't have her memory, she doesn't know- _God, I just need to talk to everyone. As soon as I take him down..._ Riley's hand reached slowly inside his trousers, fingers silently closing on a taser.

"We'll take all the time you need, Pet."

"How come you're so strong, so calm about this?" Buffy demanded with a sudden bark of hollow laughter.

"I'm gonna marry you, woman. I'm supposed to be here for you, be whatever you need. I love you, Slayer, you won't have to go through anything alone." He didn't know how he knew, how he'd learned to assume responsibility, but just like he knew how to make love gently, as if with a very fragile, delicate woman, he also knew how to step up and look after the person he loved, especially if she wasn't at her strongest. It wasn't that he didn't know Slayer was strong, it was that he knew she could use a shoulder to take the burden for a bit.

"You won't either, Spike. I'm going to be with you no matter what. I'm sorry I'm all weepy. I- I'll be stronger in a minute."

Riley watched as the vampire pulled Buffy's lips to his and kissed her tenderly. The way humans in love would kiss. Not the way a hungry, demon killer would touch a human. Riley's fingers loosened on the taser. _Demons are bad. We hunt them. This is no time to think about whether or not there are exceptions to the rule. _The taser remained in his hand, but didn't come out.

Anya and Willow entered Giles' courtyard, and barely contained their frightened gasps. A man was standing outside, spying through Giles' window. "It's him!" Willow mouthed, grabbing Anya's hand.

"Him? _Him_- him?" Anya mouthed back, eyes widening further.

Willow pointed frantically at Riley's hand as it remained in his waistband. "Gun." She breathed.

_I'll just talk to them first. If he was like this before- maybe, and that's a big maybe, I can pretend I didn't see him. But if he's just like this because the neuro taser affected his brain and they've begun reprogramming him, he is definitely coming back to the base. _He was too valuable to lose. Riley moved towards the door, very curious and feeling a strange, bittersweet ache in his chest as he watched Buffy, the girl he had thought might be "the one", wrapped in the arms of an escaped HST.

Anya and Willow crept up silently, not speaking but sharing a single thought. Disable him, before he disables them. Anya sprang when they were near enough, picking up a potted geranium from Giles' terrace and smashing it over Riley's head.

Willow, not watching Anya, only knowing she must seize the moment, cried "Morphio invocate!"

Riley made a groaning gasp and sank to the floor of the stone flagged courtyard.

"What'd you do?" Both girls demanded at once, looking horrified at their unwitting partner in crime.

"A sleeping spell!"

"I bashed him on the head with a flower pot!"

"What in heaven's name is - Willow? Anya?" Giles popped his head out of his front door.

"Hi." They chorused sheepishly, breathlessly.

"Dear Lord. Who is that?" Giles noticed the unconscious form at their feet.

"Riley Finn. TA, soldier, and apparently, peeping tom." Willow said with a stern frown.

"What happened?" Buffy's head popped out of the living room window, and Spike's shadowy form stood behind her. "Oh wow. Is that one of the guys hunting for us?"

"Uh-huh." Willow nodded, suddenly leaning against the wall. "I can't believe this is real. He seemed like such a nice guy. I knocked out a TA! That's like one step under knocking out a teacher. I'm going to be in so much trouble, oh o, oh no." Willow bit her nails nervously, paling.

Anya snorted. "You didn't knock him out, I did. Your spell is just keeping him asleep for longer. And you'd be in more trouble if he pulled out that gun and shot Spike and Buffy through the window."

"Gun!" Giles raced down the steps and knelt over the prone form, frisking him.

"He was watching us through the window?" Spike sounded furious and deadly.

"Oh no, oh no." Willow was still stuck in a hysterical chant.

"Willow! Snap out of it." Buffy commanded.

"We need to get him inside." Anya looked around nervously. "Bodies in courtyards are not good, and usually alarm the neighbors."

"Buffy can you give me a hand lifting him in?" Giles asked without thinking. Buffy nodded slowly and pulled her head back inside the house. In a moment she appeared beside him. Anya had retrieved the sinister looking black belt full of strange looking devices. With Giles taking his shoulders and Buffy taking his feet, and Anya taking Willow and the belt in hand, they moved into the house. Once inside, Spike took over Buffy's end of the boy and Buffy shut the door, locking it, and then closed the window and drew the drapes. With a grunt, he was placed on the couch.

"Well. This is interesting." Spike smiled down at the sandy haired man with a sinister smile. He looked up, and aside from Willow, who still looked on the verge of collapse, he found that everyone else was wearing the same look. "Who's got an idea?"

"Oh. I've got plenty." Buffy murmured darkly, and she stared down at the broad shouldered man with distaste on every line of her face.

"We have to be calm, reasonable, ask the smart questions, and listen to him." Giles urged caution. He was met with disbelieving looks. "And if that doesn't work- I'll beat the information out of the bastard." Giles slowly rolled up his sleeves.

Riley woke up slowly and painfully. He'd never been the victim of a hangover before but he imagined he was now. And so sleepy. That's what you get when you try to do much in a day, he thought, and tried to snuggle back into his bed. Only his bed wasn't this narrow or uncomfortable. Plus, his tired mind tried to put things together, he hadn't been in his room, he'd been doing a little recon.

Riley's eyes flew open and stared into bright green ones. "What were you doing outside the window?" Willow Rosenberg was perched on the coffee table and her head was directly over his as she leaned forward. Her jade eyes gazed intensely into his confused ones.

"Willow?" He asked in a surprised whisper.

"Me." She didn't break the gaze.

"What-"

"_We_ ask the questions first. What were you doing outside the window?"

"I'd be a good boy and answer her if I were you. She's the gentle one." A cultured, British voice wove silkily around Riley's ears and he shifted his head slightly.

Riley's eyes took in the sight of a second face, cold and severe with a decidedly unsafe glint in the eyes, the man leaning carelessly on the back of the couch and peering down at him. Riley's head swiveled further and looked past his feet. A pretty young woman, the woman he hadn't been able to find any information about, sat on the arm of the couch, hands folded, eyes looking at him with open fascination. _I'm not gonna get kidnapped by two little girls and an old guy. _Riley's hand reached slowly to his waist.

"Those things aren't there anymore." The girl on the foot of the couch said cheerily. "Don't worry, we didn't steal them. Just removed them until we know what you're doing."

Riley tried to sit up, even though he knew it would be useless, he was probably bound and - "Hey. I'm not tied up." He slowly sat up, and Willow's hand shot out and supported his shoulder.

"Do we need to do that?" The man asked smoothly. Riley, now more in possession of his faculties stopped calling him "the man" or "old guy" and recognized him as Rupert Giles.

"No, Sir. This has all been a really big misunderstanding." Riley tried to put a laugh behind his words, but he couldn't. And he really felt naked without his military issue belt full of tricks. He saw the belt was sitting neatly across the coffee table- within arms reach- if he wanted to push Willow down and make a grab. But something told him Rupert wouldn't allow him to escape unscathed from that little ploy.

"So, now that you're awake and you realize no one's tied you up - like we'd do that-" Willow shook her head at his folly, not mentioning that Anya and Spike had been all for tying him up, "can you please tell me why you were outside the window like a great big voyeur pervert?"

"Is that why you hit me on the head? You thought I was a window peeper?" Riley sounded relieved.

"Those people are disgusting. And they don't always stop at the window." Anya hastily prevaricated their actions.

"I wasn't at the window for that, I swear. Honest, Mr. Giles. I'm Riley Finn. Which I'm sure Willow told you while I was out." He sat up more and extended his hand. Giles looked at it coldly until he withdrew it. "Right. I deserve that. I came here because I was looking for Willow and Buffy."

"And I'm curious to know how you made the jump from looking for two college girls who live in the dorm and whose parents live here in town, to arriving at my door. Or rather- my window." Giles demanded frostily.

"Me, too." Willow crossed her arms. Anyone who knew her well would have been able to tell Riley that she had just put on her "resolve" face, and that she wasn't going to be swayed from getting what she wanted as long as it was on.

Riley was not a good liar. He had done well in keeping his cool and sticking to his stories in covert ops training because the situations weren't real, with real people. When confronted with Willow, a young, innocent faced woman who he actually knew, any falsehoods would come out faltering at best. "I had a reason to be concerned about Buffy. When you mentioned the name Giles the other day-" he paused when Willow cast an absolutely pitiful look at Rupert, who shook his head and gave her a kind smile- "I looked up the name- and I didn't find it immediately- so I- um- checked out this address, looking for you and Buffy. I heard Buffy's voice. I mean, I thought I heard Buffy's voice through the open window so I checked. It was her, and I was going to knock on the door. Then something hit me."

"That was me." Anya said proudly. "With a geranium."

"Uh- nice work." Riley didn't know whether to smile or scream at her, she seemed so complacent. "But I did come to see Buffy and you, Willow, and it is important, Mr. Giles, I swear. Otherwise I never would have tracked you down and -" He paused helplessly.

"Invaded my privacy and the sanctity of my home?" Giles raised one eyebrow on his regal forehead.

"Yeah. Wow. You don't pull any punches, do you, Sir?"

"No, I don't, and don't call me Sir. You've already shown disrespect by sneaking about my house, and no amount of fawning is going to help you. Unless, of course, you have something extremely compelling to tell us in regards to 'Buffy'." He said carefully.

"Where is Buffy? She was here."

"She had to go." Willow said quickly.

"And that guy? Spike? She told me she was engaged to him, and then the next day she told me it was all a joke! Did he leave, too?" Riley's face had darkened, a grim set coming over his jaw as he recalled where he'd heard the name before and remembered the sweet interaction he'd witnessed.

Upstairs in the loft bedroom, out of sight but within earshot, Buffy and Spike exchanged a look. Buffy's was confused and apologetic. Spike's was stiff, but slowly melted when she took both of his hands in hers and looked at him with mournful eyes. He silently slid closer to her and felt her airless sigh as she placed a hand over his unbeating heart. _We're gonna deal with the past when it shows itself. For now, we know we move forward, gotta keep movin' on._

Downstairs, Riley watched all three of his interrogators wince slightly at the mention of the engagement and the joke. "But I heard them together. They seem to have made up."

"They did make up. All made up now. Very, very made up." Willow said clearly, and a little too loudly. Giles coughed and Willow realized she was being obvious girl. "But that doesn't explain what was so urgent you had to run all the way across town hunting up random people!"

"I can answer you questions if you can answer just one or two of mine." Riley put on his own resolve face. It was one thing to willingly share classified information for the good of saving an innocent girl. It was another thing to share it with enemies of American democracy and demon sympathizers.

Willow looked at Giles and Anya who shrugged. "You can ask." Willow said.

"Why were you looking around the woods that morning, and the night before?"

"Nature walk."

"One of my- ROTC friends- said you were looking for paintball. And laser tag."

"You said you were having a scavenger hunt with the TAs. No other TA knew anything about a scavenger hunt." Willow bluffed quickly, and watched Riley's cheeks flush guiltily.

"Oh. I was out with some friends. We were looking for something we lost the night before, okay?"

"No, not okay." Willow's voice rose. "We were out there looking for something we lost, too! A-and I think you were looking for the same thing- a-and it's_ our _thing. Not _your _thing!"

"Now, hang on a minute." Riley felt himself getting irritated. He was the one in a compromising position now, but if they were admitting to helping HSTs, they were the ones in trouble. "I don't know what 'your thing' would be doing out there, but 'your thing' was with 'our thing', and 'your thing' had no business interfering with us finding 'our thing'."

"All the euphemisms are very confusing." Anya spoke up at the end of Riley's annoyed statement. "Can we just say Buffy and Spike instead?"

Upstairs, Spike smiled at her bluntness and Buffy remained indignant at having been called a thing, regardless of who she belonged to. Downstairs they heard a stunned silence and Anya saying innocently, "What?"

"So Buffy was in the woods that night?" Riley asked. He should feel triumphant, but he didn't. He felt like he'd just shot himself in the foot, one way or another. No matter what he heard next, he knew it was going to be bad news.

"Yes." Giles said simply.

"Helping this guy Spike?"

"With him. Not helping him do anything, necessarily." Willow's voice squeaked as she told the semi-truth. Buffy was working with him, and she needed the information for slaying, for herself. That wasn't exactly "helping". Right?

"With him, helping him, whatever. She shouldn't be anywhere near that guy! Do you know what he is?" These people were going to think he was insane, he realized, but too late.

Fortunately, he was saved by Anya's forthright attitude.

"We know that Spike isn't completely human. So what?"

"So what? So _what_? He's- he's a monster. More than a monster, we already caught him once and he got out, he's an _escaped_ monster!"

Spike held Buffy to the bed, but she was fighting him, rage in her eyes. "Stoppit!" He hissed. "We go down, an' for all we know he pulls the trigger on either of us. I know you want to go thrash him, but wait!"

"You're not a monster. You escaped because of what they did, how they tortured you. I can't stay up here!" Buffy pushed him off and thanked God for his vampire speed as he quickly and silently caught himself before he hit the floor.

"Lay low. For me." He pleaded, catching her arm. He felt her resistance ebb,and she resumed sitting beside him on the slightly rumpled looking quilt.

"Okay, so he's a 'monster', but what's that have to do with Buffy being in the woods and why you're so worried? Did you think he attacked her or something?" Willow pressed.

"No, I know he can't hurt her, he was given a behavior modification chip that recognizes the uptick in neurotransmitter activity before violent actions. An electric shock in his brain prevents him from acting out that violence." Riley just had a very upsetting realization. No HST had ever been subject to neuro tasers before. They didn't know if it worked on them. Therefore, no chipped HST had been tested, of course. What if the electrical damage of neuro tasers short circuited the chip? Even temporarily. "Has he- been acting differently? No, wait, tell me how he acted before. How did Buffy even _meet_ a guy like him!"

Upstairs, Buffy and Spike leaned forward, listening intently, but they were disappointed by the response Giles hurriedly gave. "How they met is none of your concern. How he acted before you captured him and performed your barbarous little experiments on him is scarcely your concern either."

"It actually is, Mr. Giles. Is Buffy the kind of girl who would love a vampire unless he was 'muzzled'? Did Hostile Seventeen have some kind of secret that made him different from all the other vampires we caught?" Riley glared at the other man. "Did the chip make him different, or is it him? Answer me truthfully, because what I tell you next hinges on that."

"You're hardly in a position to-"

"I love him because of who he is." Buffy's voice made every head turn towards the stairs.

"Buffy." Riley breathed. He still felt a little tremor in his heart when he looked at her.

"Riley. I don't remember ever meeting you, but they tell me we know each other. Let me introduce you to Spike. Spike, Riley. Riley, Spike, my fiancé."

"Forgive me if I'm not thrilled to see you. I think I'd rather rip your bloody head off." Spike's visage changed from human to vampire with a cold glare.

A lot seemed to happen at once. Riley lunged at Spike, Spike stepped between him and Buffy, Buffy tried to step between him and Riley, Anya and Giles tugged Riley back to the couch, and Willow screamed and fell backwards across the coffee table when Riley tried to go over her to get to Buffy and Spike.

"Everyone settle down! Sit! Sit down now, all of you!" Giles roared, hands roughly on Riley's shoulders, barely keeping him in a seat. "Sit down unless you want us to use one of your own bloody tasers on you, man!"

Riley went still. Buffy and Spike were placated into a seat by a frantically talking and pleading Willow and Anya.

"Tell us what you did. Our whole lives- our whole world, every memory we had is gone!" Buffy's voice shook, and her eyes glistened with angry tears. Riley couldn't imagine that the taser would hurt worse.

"You- you should still be almost comatose." Riley whispered, eyes locked on hers.

"Well, she's not. She's strong, an' no thanks to you. You almost bloody killed her, you an' your toy soldiers, playin' at bein' God!" Spike roared, once again trying to rise. Buffy, across his lap, was all that prevented him.

"If she hadn't been with you she never would have been in the way!" Riley had a dislike for the pale blonde creature that had nothing to do with the fact that he was a vampire, a monster his men actively tried to contain.

"This yelling won't help! She was with Spike, and some soldiers attacked them! Now both of them have no memory!" Willow raised her voice, a rarity for her. Everyone, whether they knew that about the redhead or not, seemed to realize it was an unusual occurrence and shut up. "Can you help them, or not?" Willow said much more calmly.

"I can't help. I have some information. But I can't just turn it over to you. I need some answers."

"Or we could just take it from you." Spike snarled.

"You know, you're really not helping convince me I should tell you anything. And I'm an American soldier. You can try to 'take' it from me, but you won't get it unless I decide to give it to you." He swallowed and tightened his muscles, waiting for a violent onslaught.

"You're lucky we don't decide to treat you like you treat _your_ captives." Buffy whispered. "Kept in electric cages. Experimented on. These are good people. They won't hurt you- much."

Riley felt an unreasonable pang of guilt, but brushed it off." What we do keeps people safe."

"No, Riley, what you do is play about with things you should leave alone." Giles corrected. "You either kill a vampire, or you leave them be. What you do _not_ do is see what you can gain by acting the part of mad scientist."

"It's not my decision what happens once we catch them. We get them off the streets, away from innocent people."

"And what happens when humans get in the way?" Anya asked curiously. "I mean- are the three of us next on some list to get our brains erased? Because we're taking care of Buffy and Spike?"

"No! No, we don't operate like that. Humans are what we protect."

"You cocked up there." Spike muttered drily, pointing to Buffy.

"You're the one who messed up, pal. You shouldn't have brought her with you."

"It was my decision to go." Buffy spoke up. "Wasn't it?" She asked Giles hesitantly.

"Yes. Yes, you knew you needed to go with Spike."

"So we're back to my original question." Riley interjected. "What makes Spike different? Why is he friends with humans? Everything we know about vampires says they're ruthless killers who hunt humans and kill them in cold blood."

"Not all vampires are bad." Buffy shook her head. "Trust me."

"You mean there are more vampires who don't hunt humans, more than just Spike?"

"Yes." Willow, Giles, and Buffy answered. Buffy shrugged at their questioning glances.

"I just know." She murmured.

"They're the rarity, not the rule." Giles explained.

"Okay, so he's not bad. Is he good?" Riley asked doubtfully, frowning at Spike like he was an animal in a zoo.

"Would you stop lookin' at me like I'm still in one of your boxes? I'm half human, you know. I love, I feel, I hate. Jus' like you lot. Only difference is I need blood to stay alive, an' you can live on whatever you want."

"You knew him before he was chipped?" Riley asked, starting to feel himself swayed.

"For two years." Buffy answered. "We don't always get along. We fight. We both did things we regret- at least as far as we can tell, thanks to a certain blank memory- but we love each other."

"You love each other? For real?"

Willow made a hiccuping noise in her haste to attempt an explanation but she was overridden, Buffy and Spike chorusing "yes" firmly.

"And thanks to you-" Buffy stood up slowly, "I don't remember our first kiss. I don't remember our first time. Our first date. I don't remember my mother or father! I didn't remember my last name! Spike _still _can't remember his last name!"

"Easy, easy, Slayer." Spike got up and drew her back as her voice soared and cracked. "You know you're in a right screwed up mess when the vampire is protectin' you from a slip of a girl. Lethal though she is." Spike spoke to Riley from over Buffy's shoulder.

"I'm going to get in trouble for this. So much trouble." Riley stared around the room. "If I help you- you all have to swear you never spoke to me, you never got this from me." Riley reached for the belt on the coffee table and Giles yanked him back by the shoulders. Riley sighed and delegated. "Willow- the little pocket? There's a disc. Some things you might be able to use. To understand what happened better."

"There's no- no cure you guys have? A reverse button on the little thing you hit them with?" Anya asked sadly.

"Only time. And keeping them from being reprogrammed."

"Wait. _Reprogrammed_?" Buffy asked, horrified.

"I'm not a soddin' robot!" Spike yelped.

"You can't _reprogram _a human!"

"Not easily, that's for sure." Riley whispered, eyes studying his shoes.

No one had anything to say for a long time after that.

Willow and Giles worked on her laptop in silence, reading the files Riley had put on the disc. Occasionally one of them let out a noise of worry, disgust, or surprise. Anya retreated to the kitchen, a watchful eye on the three silent figures remaining in the living room.

Riley broke the silence. "You really don't remember anything? Not me?"

"Sorry." Buffy said bitterly.

"Not- not even our picnic? Talking? We had plans."

"Shut your mouth." Spike said softly, heatedly.

"I don't remember anything about you. I remember Spike and I getting engaged, my best friend crying, worrying about her. According to my friends here, I have a couple days worth of memories from before your little buddies zapped me." Buffy glared. "Proud of yourself?"

"You're getting your memories back already? It isn't supposed to happen for three weeks." Riley ignored her accusing tone and picked out one piece of information he found surprising. "Are you- are you all human?"

"Yes!" Buffy cried, but her voice wavered.

"Yes, she is!" Giles also called from the dining room. "And if you have to ask, you haven't done your homework, young man."

"I did my homework. You- you're strong. You survived things no one else should have- your files-"

"My files?"

"Her_ files? _You've got files on my girl?" Spike glowered. "You're a regular little busy body, aren't you?"

"Riley, stop speaking unless you want another potted plant to the cranium." Giles advised. "I don't think you'd like it if someone told you every unpleasant incident you've seen in your life in a matter of minutes, would you?"

"No. No, Sir." _Maybe the Initiative should have included some sensitivity training along with the neuro taser manual...and I'll never,_ ever _admit I had that thought._

"But I want to know." Buffy demanded.

"And you will. We just need to make sure that you- that you have time to process. I promise- let me look into this, and I'll tell you anything you want to know." Giles knew the moment had come, when he could lie, tell the truth, or play for just a bit more time. However, with Buffy, the stalling never worked. But he hadn't counted on finding an unexpected ally in Spike.

"Let them find out what's gone wrong. Then we'll get our answers." He soothed. Reluctantly, she nodded.

Willow asked Riley to come over. "I just want you to explain some of these terms." She asked quietly, keeping one eye on Buffy and Spike.

Riley came over quickly, happy to be away from the uncomfortable presence of two people he had injured. For the first time ever, he felt as though he had hurt _people. _People with faces, names, family, lovers, _lives_. For the first time, he felt his job was ugly.

"What would you like to know?"

"HST?"

"Hostile sub-terrestrial."

"Does that mean there are NHSTs? Non-hostile?"

"Uhh- no, I never heard that mentioned."

"And sub-terrestrial, from below the earth?" Giles took off his glasses and laughed with a slightly bitter smile. "How very Biblical of you."

"I don't name them. I just do my job. And let me tell you, right now my job is supposed to involve hauling your pet vampire back to the lab, and reporting all of you as HST sympathizers. Before you mock my job, you better be grateful I'm thinking outside the box on this mission." Riley looked into Giles' eyes unflinchingly.

"A man who sees the gray area is a far unhappier man- but usually a smarter one." Giles didn't look away.

Willow's soft voice redirected them. "Riley, where's information on this thing- the neuro taser- and how it reacts with vampires?"

"I'm afraid it's all right there." He jerked his head to Spike.

"So you've no idea how this is going to affect them? Only human data has been gathered?"

"From what Spike and Buffy said, it sounds like they're faring better than humans. Humans have almost no recall for three weeks. They're improving a little bit, and its only been a couple days. That probably means the damage is healing faster for them.

"We'll have to get her another CAT scan." Willow murmured to Giles, who nodded.

"Grilled cheese and pears!" Anya announced. "Oh, and Spike, a nice big cup of blood."

"You're a luv." Spike rose and collected his cup and a plate for Buffy.

"I made enough for the commando, even though we don't like him." Anya put a plate in Riley's hand.

"Blood? Where does he get blood?" If these people were serial killers, all bets were off. And he might be in more danger than he thought.

"From the butcher." Buffy rolled her eyes.

"Animal?"

"Yes, animal, we're not bloody Sweeney Todds." Giles muttered savagely into his tea cup. Riley didn't get the reference, but he looked surprised.

"We thought it had to be human!"

"Whatever this is seems to do the trick." Spike drank deeply. "Although I wouldn't say no to a bite, if it was willing donor." He ran a finger along Buffy's neck and she giggled at the strangely erotic sensation, rolling her head back into his hand. She did smell so bloody wonderful. All of them gave off pleasant scents, scents that made him feel pangs of hunger when he wasn't full, but he only wanted to sip on her, feast on her. Maybe if they made love tonight he'd mention it. Instincts to bite during sex had gotten stronger over the last day, now that they didn't have to be so careful with one another. With no memories to guide him, he wasn't sure if the bites she'd received were a matter of his survival or a matter of loving and bonding, and he hesitated to bring it up.

"He fed off of you?" Now that was too sick. Riley didn't think he'd ever look at Buffy with desire in his eyes again. Even with all he knew about her, he still found himself drawn to her, but if she'd been bitten by a demon... maybe that was why she was so oddly strong and fast. Maybe she had some vampire-transmitted power. He'd never want to risk being with her now, not sexually. V-STDs, vampire-STDs, great, a whole new fear.

"I didn't mind." Buffy said defensively.

Willow and Giles made twin exclamations of shock and Anya nodded sagely. "During sex. Very common. Well- for vampires anyway."

Buffy blushed. She hadn't realized that was when, but- well, she had the scars to prove it. And she assumed Anya must have a reason for saying things, the girl was nothing if not efficient in her speech. "Yes. That's right." Giles tea cup met a shattered fate on the edge of the table and Willow yelped, swinging her precious laptop out of the way of the tea.

"You can't have." He gasped out.

"Get a grip. He's my lover, it wasn't as if I didn't allow it." Buffy crossed her arms.

"You-remember this?" Giles prayed she didn't. Maybe it was confusion. Maybe it was old scars that she figured were from Spike.

"A lady doesn't kiss an' tell." Spike halted the dialogue. Of course she didn't fuckin' remember it, why would he keep rubbin' salt in the wound? And Giles surely didn't think he'd drink from Slayer when she was so unwell. He might be a vampire but he was a vampire in love. He had to know it had happened before these last few days.

"I don't want to talk about this anyway." Buffy muttered, not liking the disgust in Willow's eyes. For being friends who were willing to take such risks and go to so much effort, they didn't exactly radiate support about her choice of a boyfriend, and it hurt. Just another hurt on top of a mountain of pain she'd already experienced in a few short days.

"It isn't really important." Giles focused on the matter at hand. "We have some answers about what happened to you. We can sit down and talk about it calmly." He rubbed his forehead tiredly, looking at the remains of his ruined china.

"Does_ he_ have to be here for this?" Spike asked petulantly, jerking his chin at Riley.

"Just for the start. I'm sure Mr. Finn has to get back to his lab." Giles replied. "I assume that if we're not to speak of your help, you will reciprocate?"

"In this one case, this one time- I'll say nothing. Because Buffy's a human and we weren't supposed to bag her, and because Spike seems like he isn't putting you at risk. Although- I should warn you, the behavior modification chip might have been damaged by the neuro taser. We obviously don't have studies to see the results of both being in play at once." Riley waited for the worried looks to set in, watching Buffy's face in particular. She seemed totally at ease, sitting herself more deeply in Spike's lap.

Riley continued after he didn't see any visible change in Buffy. "If you ever cross paths with the Initiative again, all bets are off, and I can't save you. Even if I'm in charge of the squad, doesn't mean I can help. "

"The Initiative, huh? That's helpful." Willow beamed at him and Riley cursed himself silently for another slip of the tongue.

"So, mutual silence. Understood. Spike, Buffy, you two were shot with something called a neuro taser, as Riley just mentioned. It knocks out the body- and the brain. Once you fall unconscious, electrical impulses began working on the hippocampus and the right side of the cerebrum, erasing memory. Completely."

"Completely." Buffy whispered. She'd known, she'd experienced. It was still a grim thing to hear spoken.

"Fresh start, huh, Pet?" Spike tried to make her smile, and was rewarded with a small grin.

"But in three weeks, the hippocampus begins to heal. In three weeks, you could be 'reprogrammed' according to this woman, Maggie Walsh."

"That's our professor." Willow whispered.

"I think less and less of the college experience." Anya muttered, nervously picking at her late lunch and wishing Xander were home from work already.

"But we're not doing any reprogramming. Obviously." Giles raised his voice to recapture their attention. "In the control group, humans who received a mid-level dose and were left to heal naturally began to make great strides after the three weeks. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. A young, healthy woman like yourself should have full and complete recall in a few months. Spike, with your vampire healing, you're- you're going to be recovering a majority of your recent life in a few months as well."

"Um. I bet all of you have questions. I just- could I speak to Riley for just a second?" Willow abruptly tugged Riley to his feet, and out the front door before anyone could say anything.

"Hey- hang on!" Riley stumbled into the redhead as they paused on the front step. "Okay, gosh, what-"

"Spike's over a hundred years old!" She hissed.

"Huh?" Riley cried. Willow shushed him frantically. "How old?" He whispered.

"Over a hundred. A hundred twenty something since he became a vampire, and then- I don't know he's between twenty and thirty if you look at him, so add another twenty or thirty years of human life to his vampire time and you've got a guy who's waiting for his hundred sixtieth party!"

"Wow. Wow, that's incredible! That's so cool, it must be like a walking history book." Riley's eyes lit up in spite of himself. "World War II, World War I, all the military battles and innovations he's seen." He ended wistfully.

"Yeah. Or he _would _have been able to tell you about, if you hadn't zapped him." Willow poked his chest, green eyes flashing furiously. "The point is- he may never get all of his memory back."

"He will. In time. I mean, if he's lived this long, and he stays out of our way, he'll get it back. Eventually. In a few years."

"A few years to not remember anything about your parents, or even if you have brothers and sisters." Willow felt her eyes brim with unexpected sympathy for Spike. "I don't know why you want to 'reprogram' vampires anyway. But I can't think of too many worse ways to torture someone."

"You have to understand- this isn't my call, I just bring them in." Riley said desperately.

"You aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem." Willow didn't mince words. "You better hope no one ever accidentally knocks you on the head with one of those things."

Riley felt a sudden flash of cold sweat run down his spine. "No one's that careless."

"Tell that to Buffy. You know what- questions or not, I don't think you're welcome here anymore. I'll send you an email at your campus account with a number to reach me at if I have anything I need to ask. I'll get your goody belt."

Riley was left standing on the doorstep. When the door reopened, it was Buffy who handed him his belongings. "Here."

"Buffy- I'm so sorry. I really am. If there's anything I can ever do for you..."

"I'm really big on forgiving these days." Buffy replied solemnly. "But I have to see some effort behind the apology. I don't care what you said about this being the one time you help us. If you ever decide to do the right thing on a more regular basis- I'll stop wanting you dead. _That's_ what you can do for me."

She slipped back into the house, leaving him to mull over the things he was aware of in his life, and wondering if there was such a thing as absolute right and wrong. He marshaled his mind to the task at hand. He had to go home. He had a very large, very complex report to falsify and then probably a very pissed off Bitch Monster of Death, aka Maggie Walsh, to deal with.

Spike and Buffy looked at the three friends who sat shoulder to shoulder on the stood, arms crossed, looking down. "I'm not waiting months to find out about my life." Buffy informed them.

"An' I don't know what you know about me, but you can at least help me with the last two years."

"So talk. Please." Buffy demanded.

"An' try to tell us the truth this time." Spike took her hand and they waited for explanations to begin.

_To be continued..._


	7. Chapter 7

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Notes: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Dedicated to Lithium Reaper, DLillith21, GoodfortheSoul and Lil-Leti_

_Mushy/Smutty Warning!_

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part VII

"We've tried hard to be truthful, but not upset or shock you. I hope you can understand that." Giles prefaced his explanation. "Maybe- maybe this would be something best discussed privately. Would you prefer that?"

Spike shrugged, Buffy looked torn. "Are you two able to help explain stuff from different perspectives?" She asked Willow and Anya.

"I might be. I mean- we're best friends. We talk a lot." Willow whispered, nervously twisting her hands.

"I won't be. Xander could." Anya stood up. "This has been extremely stressful. I vote I go home until Xander picks me up and brings me back."

"Go on then." Giles nodded and waved to her. "You'll be careful?"

"I'm always careful. That's how I lived so long." Anya said cheerfully and left.

Following her departure, the four stared at one another in bleak silence for a moment. "I don't know where to begin." Giles finally admitted.

"Start from when you met Slayer." Spike encouraged.

"That's a good plan. And Willow can help, she met Buffy about the same time."

"It was a muggy September day, a-and you were wearing-" Willow launched into her tale, but Buffy stopped her, laughing in spite of herself.

"Maybe I could get a blurry outline for now and we could fill in the details later?" Buffy suggested.

"This part is going to come as a shock to you. I'm reluctant to tell you this until you're stronger." Giles warned.

"We can take anything." Buffy said, clasping Spike's hand more firmly.

"Slayer an' me are dead tough. Spit it out."

"Buffy is a girl chosen by mystical forces to hunt and kill vampires and demons." Giles complied. Fine, they wanted him to spit, he'd spat. Now he had to watch them react to the magnitude of her destiny.

"You're kidding me." Buffy's aquiline brows scraped her hairline, but her voice was deadpan.

"Her?" Spike stared at the love of his unlife.

"Me? I'm like- five foot nothing and have you seen my clothes? These are not "go kill things" clothes!"

"I've tried to tell you that for years." Giles mumbled.

"You _are_ tough, Sweetheart. An' you had that nasty stake on you when I met you. Plus, fast, strong, and the rest. We _did _know you weren't normal." Spike spoke thoughtfully.

"True. Okay, so, I kill bad things. Oh, I get it, I 'slay' them. Like dragons. Have I ever slain a dragon?" Buffy's eyes lit up.

"N-no, oh, but you've killed some really big snakey, reptile demons and the Mayor. He was dragon sized."

"I killed the MAYOR?" Buffy looked horrified. "Oh my God..."

"Shush now, Luv, it's in the past. It's all in the past." Spike soothed. "Was he tryin' to get at her? Had her trapped or somethin'?"

"Uh, no. He turned himself into a dragon-sized demon creature, and we killed him. You and Giles had to blow up the school to do it, but it was either that or he was going to eat the entire senior class." Willow hastily explained.

Spike and Buffy stared for a minute in mute disbelief. "Is she on drugs?" Spike finally asked softly.

"No, she's telling the truth. See, this is too incredible, I really don't think-"

"No, no, we can handle it. We can handle it, we already got messed up by super secret agent man and one of us is a vampire. We can handle it. So you met me, and I've get special powers." Her brows knit and she frowned. "Why weren't you freaked?"

"I'm your Watcher. I train you, give you advice, help you battle the demons and vampires."

"And this is Sunnydale. There's lots of weird stuff everyone pretends not to know, but we know. I wasn't too freaked. I was a _little_ freaked. But... um, I'm kind of- a witch. I mean, I am _now_. I wasn't when you met me, but I learned a little in high school. I'm not a good one. I mean, I'm not a _bad_ one, not evil! I'm just not very talented yet. My spells get messed up. Usually."

"Indeed." Giles mumbled, giving her a wilting glare.

"Wow! Can you do a spell now? Could you make me invisible or something?" Buffy looked impressed.

"NO! Don't try that, Willow." Giles warned.

"I won't. I won't, I'm not stupid." Willow hissed.

"So- we've got a vampire, a Slayer, a Watcher, a witch. What are the boy an' the other girl?" Spike asked, an oddly amused grin on his face.

"Xander is a fine young man. Anya is a strangely blunt young woman." Giles smiled faintly.

"Did Anya ever get zapped by something? Because she talks funny." Buffy said with careful curiosity.

"Anya wasn't zapped. She kinda- she kinda didn't used to be human. I mean she was, then she wasn't, now she is again." Willow rambled nervously.

"Pardon?" Spike blinked.

"Not important. Whatever, we're all full of weird, I got it." Buffy waved that off. "I know who I am, and I know a little bit more about you guys. Help Spike out."

"When did I come here? Why?"

"You came here because this town is home to dark forces. You wanted to tap into the power to heal your sick friend. She was very ill, and you believed that there were several things that might cure her in this town." Giles phrased it carefully.

Spike watched his face. He knew what he wasn't saying. The "friend". A woman. A very sick woman. _That's where I learned to make love without movin' too much. That's how come I can be as gentle as you like. _"I take it I wasn't successful?"

"You were, eventually. She got better. In time."

"Where's this friend now?" Spike tightened his grip on Buffy's hand again. _I choose this one. I must've chosen this one._

"You two parted ways. I don't believe you stay in contact." Giles watched Spike carefully. _So he knows. He may not know the details, but he's smart enough to read between the lines. And so is Buffy. Oh, Lord, the pain in her face..._

"Was she a good vampire, too?" Buffy asked softly.

"No. No, she wasn't."

"So who is the other vampire? Who is the good guy that I_ know_ about, even if I can't remember what I know?"

Willow looked at Giles with silent appeal in her eyes. _Don't tell her, don't trigger something inside. She was finally learning to live without him, and now it'll cut her heart wide open again._

"He was called Angel. He wasn't in town for long. He lives in LA now. You two don't remain in touch."

"Don't remain in touch. I got it. That's code for 'we broke up', huh?" A bitter smile twisted her lips.

"The man was a fool, Luv. A bloody fool." Spike said fervently, taking her hand and kissing it.

"So was she. Whoever she was." Buffy returned just as fervently.

Giles stood, not able to take dancing around these issues any longer, and unable to bring himself to callously and coldly tell her the events he'd witnessed. _I am a weak man, but I can't say what I need to say._ He looked desperately at Willow who shook her head frantically. "There are hundreds of things to tell you. You've been an active Slayer under my care for over three years- although officially I'm no longer considered your Watcher. I was fired. And to be fair, you quit the Watcher's Council so we're both rogues, free agents, as it were. But we're still working together, caring for each other as always."

"Isn't there some way you could just hit the highlights for her?" Spike asked.

"It'd be so easy if there was a Slayer website." Willow sighed. "Everything in one easy little package."

Giles rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "There is a place where all but the most recent events are written down." He paced along the couch once. "It's just that they're _written _down. All these painful, somewhat private events of your life, Buffy. And in some cases, Spike's life. I'm not sure you'd like to learn about yourselves in some musty book."

"I'd rather learn from a book than watch you circlin' the airport for bloody ever, mate." Spike said with his usual brashness.

Buffy hesitated. She still felt her "friends'" expectations weighing heavily upon her when they talked. She still felt the awkward pauses, as well. The book might be more impersonal, but at least it wouldn't be filled with gaps that left her wondering- not about the big events anyway, and that was all she wanted right now, just the big picture. It definitely wouldn't be filled with silently hopeful stares that she was doomed to disappoint. "I'd like to see the books. But could you guys- um- maybe stick around? In case I have questions?"

"We'll be right here." Giles went to a roll top desk in the corner and unlocked it, fiddled inside for a moment and brought out a stack of volumes. "This is the first year and half."

Buffy stared, open mouthed. "Is there a summary guide someplace?"

"No, I'm afraid not." Giles laughed softly. He hummed thoughtfully to himself and then rummaged about on another shelf. "Buffy is reading the Watcher's Diaries. Volumes pertinent to herself. These are Chronicles, also kept by Watchers. You're in this one." He held a thick, black cloth covered volume to Spike with something like sadness in his eyes. "I'm- I'm sorry if what you read upsets you. Either of you."

"Spike!" Willow found her voice. "Stop a minute. Spike." She paused. "You- you're not young. You _look_ young. You stay the same age you were when you were turned when you're a vampire."

"Alright. So I'm an old man. I feel young enough. I'm young enough for you, aren't I, Slayer?"

"You are. You're the man I love, age means nothing." She dared the others to argue.

"I just didn't want you to open up and get a shock." Willow whispered, backing away.

"I think I'll make some tea. Willow? Could you be persuaded to make some more cookies?"

"Yes! Yes, please!" She squeaked. She and Giles walked briskly to the kitchen. "I have a guilt overload, Giles, and I don't think this is even my fault." She hissed.

"I know, Believe me. I feel like the worst Watcher on Earth, in the history of Watchers." He hissed back. "At least you've shown her support. Imagine what she'll think of me when she reads about the Cruciamentum. When she realizes I never researched Angel's curse, that I didn't warn her about him losing his soul. Lord..."

Buffy and Spike sat in the chair, the one they had begun to think of as "their chair", in "their position", her sitting on his lap, close together, him looking up at her, her looking adoringly into his eyes. Only now the position wasn't full of adoration. "I'm scared to open the damn thing." He whispered.

"So am I." She laughed in her tension.

"Slayer!" He seized her arm as it traveled from his neck to her book's cover. "Whatever I've done- I know that I want to be with you."

"I know. And that's all I want. I don't care about the past. I mean, it can get ripped away from you in a second, why does it have to make a big deal?" Her voice became thickened with tears. "I don't want to lose you, you're the only thing I really know." She rasped against his neck, suddenly letting go and folding herself into his embrace.

"You won't lose me. Not unless- unless you decide your memories are worth more than this."

"Nothing is worth more than this to me." She whispered.

"Then we got nothin' to be scared of, right, Slayer?"

"Right." She nodded, still clinging to him. "Promise you won't leave?"

"I do. I make that promise."

"Okay. Then let's read."

Darkness fell and Giles' living room remained entombed in a sad, nervous, silence. The lovers, so close, seemed unable to speak to one another, or even look at each other. In spite of that, they didn't move apart.

Willow and Giles baked and hacked and avoided the living room at all costs. The only words spoken were to Xander and Anya on the phone, advising them not to come over until called.

"Should I tell them about the engagement yet?" Willow whispered at one point.

"I believe Spike and Buffy might have enough to contend with once they learn about the loss of Angel and Drusilla. And once Spike and Buffy realize their relationship was far from loving- I doubt that they'll believe the engagement charade was ever real for too much longer." He whispered back grimly.

Spike shut his book, not done, but sickened. Sickened because he felt oddly thrilled to hear of his own violent prowess, and sickened because he didn't kill to eat, as he'd expected. Well, he did. But he targeted a few in particular. Slayers. Girls like the one on his lap. And he killed two of the three he'd wanted. The third sat inches from him, the love of his life. He'd set out to kill the most beautiful, wonderful thing in his life. He wanted to vomit, but he couldn't work out how in the stupid, dead body he was in.

Buffy closed the third volume. She'd made it up to the end of the second year and the summer months were left blank. She felt sick. Sick and sad and angry with herself. _I'm a hero. I'm a hero- why don't I feel it? Why don't I feel like anything but a scared, lost little girl? Why aren't I weeping? I sent my lover to hell. I worked with Spike, but he'd already tried to murder me twice. My mom doesn't even know two years in. My dad isn't even mentioned except in my "genealogy" page._

_So why don't I feel more? How come it's still empty inside my head, in my heart? Is it because I read about it and it feels like I'm just reading another book, not _my _life story? Or is it because it all seems meaningless as long as I got out of it alive? _She cast a look at Spike, who sat with his eyes pointing blankly at his lap. _Is it because I'm willing myself not to care, so I don't have to ask myself too much about him, Spike, Slayer of Slayers? The man I still love._

"Here." Spike handed her his book hollowly. "I haven't read it all. This is what I am. No, no this is what I was, Slayer. I'm not like that now. Not all of me."

_He has guts. Courage and something else- something inside that makes me feel safe, even if I feel unsure. Like I know he'd tell me the truth, bad or good._ "Thanks. Here. Y-You can read about me, too." Buffy took the book and passed him her own with trembling fingers. "Spike..."

"Shh, Poppet. It'll be alright." He soothed, not sure if it would be, but sure he'd try to make it so.

Buffy asked the first question since they'd begun reading. Her voice was sudden and hoarse from disuse, shattering the silence, sending Giles and Willow out of their chairs in the dining room with a leap. Something she'd noticed when reading through the Chronicles, a book that wasn't just about her, but had mentions of many slayers, had forced her to speak. "With all this super power- do they live long, these slayers?"

She'd only read mention of five. Almost all of them died in their teens, one was twenty. And apparently, she'd died, too. Fortunately, she had friends, didn't seem to fight all alone like the rest. Someone had saved her life, done CPR, or she'd have been another statistic. Still, it was only five. Five out of who knew how many that had died young.

Spike looked up at her question, eyes trained on Giles'. He hadn't made the connection. Maybe there was no connection to make. "Giles? Do slayers live long because they're so fast and strong, and they have super powers?" Buffy repeated, voice sounding edgier.

He hated himself, for having long ago lost his detachment to the point where he couldn't bring it forth at will. With tears in his eyes, he said one small, soft word. "No."

Spike licked his lips, his arms involuntarily contracting around the form of his betrothed. "Vampires- 'master vampires' like what the books say I am? We live for a long time? Or we don't get deader, at any rate?"

The voice was still soft, but now it was grim. "Yes."

" 'Scuse me." Spike gently pushed Buffy from his lap and headed quickly down the hall, into the bathroom. The door thudded shut.

"I can't even look myself in the eye." He hissed at the empty mirror, just before silent tears started coursing down his cheeks. _Was I always like this? Was I always so bloody soft about love? That damn book said I "cried unceasingly as my paramour Drusilla lie dying, but unable to die, after being attacked by a mob in Prague." The book also said I made a bloody feast of carnage of said mob. It doesn't matter, does it, all that past? Just matters my heart is broken now. _He tried to compose himself. _Get out there. Slayer needs you, you prat._

A soft tap at the door made him control his tears with an effort. He rubbed his eyes furiously. "Come in." He said with a carefully even voice. _Only Slayer'd come to me now. _

It was her. She didn't say anything, just slid into his arms like his interlocking piece, like the missing gear that makes the clock tick. He inhaled her scent and closed his eyes, locking his jaw to keep in everything, all his words, all his tears.

"Why?" She whispered. _Why will I die soon, and he'll exist for ages? Why when we're both alone, and we need each other?_

"When we both just woke up to the truth of things?" He didn't answer her question, merely voiced his own accompanying query. _When I finally realize I'm in love, she's gonna go so soon? Why when I'm finally gonna feel dead inside without her would you make me remember that I'll exist for centuries alone?_

They stood in the small room, embracing, both crying silently and trying not to let the other one know.

"Should we check on them?" Willow asked after thirty minutes of their conspicuous absence. No sound was heard from down the hall except an occasional soft muffled noise. No voices. No groans or cries, or fists flying in anger, or even taps running indicating that they needed cold water to splash on their faces or to wet their tight throats.

"I don't know what I'd say." Giles shrugged. "This is all my fault, you know. I should have tracked her faster. Or insisted we all stay together that night."

"So we could all get zapped? So you and Xander and me could be commando chow? 'Cause we're not super strong. We'd still be in la-la land, waiting to get reprogrammed like a VCR after the power goes out." Willow stomped her foot. "You want to blame someone, blame me! I'm the one who messed up the stupid, selfish spell. Now they think they're in love and they're dying of broken hearts. A-and what's worse- even if I tell them now, they're still going to feel like they're dying of broken hearts. They fell in love."

"A spell cannot truly make you fall in love, Willow." Giles sighed, wrapping a protective arm across her shoulders as she slumped over a tray of "guilt cookies".

"I know. But being thrown together in a crisis and seeing someone, not for what they really are, but for what they_ could_ be, _that _can make you fall head over heels, Giles."

He pulled off his glasses and looked down at her sternly. "Are you saying you actually believe the two of them have real feelings? That this love is genuine?"

"I'm saying I know what it looks like. This doesn't look like the engagement spell. You said they were all happy and grabby and giggly. This is support, and defending each other, trying to be there and comfort each other. And then yeah, they do the happy smoochie stuff, too. They act like half of them is gone when the other one isn't around. That- that's how it feels without Oz. That's what Spike felt like without Drusilla, like he was nothing without her, he told me. With Angel- Buffy said she had to force herself to keep breathing." Willow felt tears splash her cheeks and she pleaded with her eyes for the more knowledgeable man beside her to make everything magically all better.

"Oh. Oh, good Lord." Giles breathed out a pained breath. "Well- well, it can't be. They can't be. Spike is evil, he doesn't have a soul."

"Does _he_ know that?" Willow asked tremulously.

"Oh. No. I don't suppose he does. Moreover, Buffy probably doesn't realize that either. Bloody hell."

"Cookie?"

"Yes, please."

"Scotch?

"I don't know... I suppose I'd better not."

"Spike and Buffy are in love and it isn't because they lost their minds or I screwed up a spell._ Do you want some Scotch_?" She repeated, arching one brow.

"A double. Thank you."

"There's a lot more left to read." Buffy finally sniffled out.

"There is." Spike agreed. "Shall we?"

"I guess we have to."

"We don't have to. We can go, if you want. Jus' us. We could get away from this place." Spike said, almost eagerly.

"And what happens when our memories come back?" Buffy looked at him gravely.

"I thought we agreed that it didn't matter." Spike pulled her hands into his own. "I thought what mattered was us, Slayer."

"It is, Spike. But I'd still like to see my mom and dad. Someday."

"Right. Right, that's true." He nodded, raking his hands through his hair. "Then I guess we better get out there an' finish reading."

"C-can I still sit with you?" Buffy whispered mournfully as his hand touched the door knob.

_Simple words shouldn't undo my soddin' heart strings. But they do._ Spike picked her up and kissed her hard, not caring if he was crying this time. "Always sit with me. Lay with me. Sleep beside me. _Be_ with me, Slayer."

"I will. I will, I will, I will." She wept just as hard, chokingly. "But I'm not here for too long."

"I don't care! I don't care, I need you while you're here, Luv."

"I need you, too. I want to go home, Spike."

"We'll go then."

"No. No- I don't know where real home is. I just know the house. I want to go where it _feels_ like home. Where it's safe and I'm not scared."

"Aren't I your home, then?" He stroked her hair off of her cheeks, desperate eyes scanning equally desperate ones.

"Yeah. But just you. I want to be alone. With just you."

Giles nearly sprayed his drink all over his hand when Buffy and Spike marched into the living room, as deadly and calmly commanding as he had ever seen either of them. Except for their red rimmed eyes and the traces of tears on both cheeks. "Can you take us to my house, please? We have a lot of reading to do, and we're both really tired."

"O-of course. Let me get your laundry into a suitcase, Spike."

"Thanks. Can I get some blood bags to go?"

"Oh, and cookies." Willow placed a heaping platter in Buffy's arms. "Double chocolate chip. They're your favorite. At least- they were."

"I'm sure they still are. My taste buds didn't get knocked out.." Buffy laughed weakly. Spike smiled encouragingly at her and went to raid the fridge.

"Willow, I'll run you home. Or to the dorms." Giles offered.

"The dorms, thanks Giles."

In a few moments, everyone was ready to go, and they left the house carrying an assortment of bags and parcels, oddly quiet and uncomfortable.

They dropped Willow off first. Buffy turned down her offer to walk into the dorms with her, just to "see the place". "I'm all memory jogged out, Willow. Thanks."

"No problem. Um. You know you can call me, any time of day or night? Right?"

"We know. Thank you for your help. And the cookies."

Willow leaned into the back seat and hugged Buffy hard and fast. "It'll be okay." She whispered in her ear, and ran off.

Giles pulled the car into the garage of the Summers' house after making a sortie inside to open it. Once pulled in, they scrambled from the car and back inside, Giles carrying the pile of precious books, Spike in charge of the luggage and blood, and Buffy balancing the cookies. After taking a moment to put everything away, Giles gently set the books on the dining room table.

"I'm sure, with all that you've read, you have many questions." He prompted hesitantly.

"Millions." Buffy sighed. Giles looked at her patiently. "Oh. Sorry, millions, but I'm not sure what I want to ask yet. I'll let you know when I do."

"You look all in, Giles. You should go get some kip." Spike prodded.

"But the books-"

"We have lots of reading to do. They'll still be here in the morning when you come to pick us up." Buffy stated firmly.

"Buffy, I don't doubt that, but surely you need a bit of guidance to process some of this."

"Probably."

"But on the other hand- these are _our_ lives we're reading about. We might want privacy more than guidance." Spike's voice held a threatening edge. _Don't force my hand, I'll boot you out if she needs time that you won't give her._

Giles appraised the vampire, almost able to see the demon roiling just under the pale human features. "I don't know if leaving you alone in the house is the best course of action. I could go upstairs if you'd like privacy. Or stay down, if you want to -go up." He stumbled over the last uncomfortable words.

Spike growled and Buffy tossed her head towards him, silencing him with a flare from her iced emerald eyes. "Don't worry about us, Giles. Please go rest."

Giles moved closer to her. "In Spike's condition-"

"He can't hurt me, Giles." Buffy reminded him.

"The chip may have been damaged." Giles reminded her in a violent whisper.

"I kill things like him, anyway. Now go." Buffy said frostily, and walked him to the garage, pretending she didn't see the stunned look of pain on Spike's face.

_She kills things like me. So cold. So hard. Am I just a thing to her? How the bloody fuck did that happen in the space of under an hour? _Spike paced, hands traveling distractedly from his hair to the ache in his chest. He heard the garage door close and the puttering noise of the Citroen backing down the drive. "Slayer?" He watched her enter the room.

Buffy flew into his arms, hands on his cheeks. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Baby, I had to. I wanted him to leave us alone. I'm sorry."

"Oh. Oh, God. Scared me." Spike chuckled in relief and kissed her back, sucking her tongue against his own, as if he could swallow her down and never have to let her go.

"We should read." She gasped into his mouth.

"We should." He picked up a book, fanned through it. "I kill your kind. You kill mine. Seems to have skipped the part about us fallin' in love." His mouth returned to hers.

"Did it make you remember more?"

"Made me aware of more." He stopped his feverish perusal of her skin. "Slayer. I killed. Hundreds. For food, yeah, but I reveled in the bloodshed. I'm not a good man. But- that was already somethin' I knew, without knowin'."

"I'm scared, Spike." She held his head to hers and bored into his eyes with a desperate gaze.

"Of me?"

"No. Of me. Of my life."

"You're one of the good guys, Luv, no need to fear yourself."

"But I could kill you. I killed the other good vampire, the Angel one. I kept you chained in a bathtub when you were helpless. I died, and something brought me back. I'm not- I'm not a whole human." She shook suddenly in his arms.

"Neither am I, Poppet. Neither am I, an' I love you whoever, however you are. The question is- d'you love me? With the blood on my hands?" She opened her mouth, sweetly curving in reassurance and he halted her. "No. Let me finish. With blood on my hands- that I don't feel sorrow for?"

She paused. "I promised I'd forgive whatever you did."

"Yeah, but there's promising an' then there's marryin' a mass murderer." His voice was soft, humble, but not without a fierce edge.

He's a warrior. Whatever else he was, he's that, and there's something about finding someone like me- somewhat like me- that makes me need him more. "Was it instinct?"

"Must've been. At least in part. But I dunno. An' the way I'm goin', maybe I never will know."

"The old Slayer would have blamed you for whatever you did, even if you couldn't remember it. I'm not like that. I want to forgive. I want to get on with my life, broken and short as it is."

"But when the old Slayer's back, Luv?" He stepped back from her.

"No!" The step, the action of leaving, sent her into a panic. "No! No, don't leave, don't make me choose between memories and you." She clawed his arms to drag him back against herself.

"Shh, shh, never." He pulled her close, just as violently. "I'm just saying'- it might not work too well."

"But we have to try. Tell me you'll try?"

"If we have to take on the whole damn world, Slayer, I promise to try."

She nodded, calming down, coming off her frantic, fear-driven adrenaline rush. She released him enough to look in his eyes without their heads bumping. "We should probably read for a little bit more."

"And you should eat."

"We'll eat and read."

_And go to bed_, both of them thought, but didn't say.

He made eggs and toast for them both, with blood for himself. It was simple, and he was too busy being engrossed in the books to rustle up anything else. The stories they told of her. This little bit of a thing, takin' on demons and vamps, unflinching. "You really are the most amazin' woman." He told her in frank admiration.

Buffy looked at him with a hesitant smile. _What if I don't live up to that woman, now? I bet _she _was never scared to face death. I'm terrified. And this is really upsetting, because _she_ is _me_. I'm that warrior woman- and I hate it, I hate feeling like a stranger in my own skin. The only thing that makes me feel brave, is him._

"Bleedin' hell!" Spike slammed his fist down as he made another connection. "This Angel bloke? He sired the girl- you know Drusilla?"

"My ex made your ex?"

"Weird. An' _she_ made_ me_!"

"Is this incest then, or something? Am I sleeping with my ex boyfriend's grandson?"

"Made through bitin', not- birth." Spike blushed although his cheeks remained pallid.

"This is all so freaky!" Buffy slapped the book closed and stabbed her eggs violently.

"Tell me about it." Spike mumbled. "Tangled up history. My flippin' head hurts again."

"M-maybe we should take it easy tonight." Buffy suggested. _He's not going to be able to love me when he finds out his "Slayer" was only so tough when she didn't realize she was gonna die before she hit twenty. What's left for the warrior besides a scared little girl? _She looked at the man she loved. She couldn't just roll over when their love was hanging in the balance._ I mean, I'll try, and the power is still in me. I can get over this. I have to get over this. I don't want to lose him..._

_She doesn't want me. Too messed up. Too much blood on my hands. We'll try, I know we'll try- but I guess she just needs a break from trying._ "Yeah. We can take all the time you need, Slayer. I'll be here."

"I'm not doing another word of reading. My brain hurts." Buffy cleared the dishes, and Spike watched her give herself an angry shake when she realized she didn't know where the kitchen trash can was or which drawer the dishtowels were in.

"Here. Lemme help-" Spike never got to finish his sentence because the plates went into the sink with a heave and a clatter. He was damn glad they'd used plastic.

"I don't want to need help! I'm this warrior, this 'Chosen One'! I kill things, I hunt things that hunt me!" She hurled the forks in after the plates, and shook off his comforting arms.

"Shh, Poppet-"

"I'm not supposed to be comforted! I'm supposed to die! It's my job and I'm scared!" She let loose a soft shriek, still fighting off his arms, but he wouldn't let go. "I'm not the brave girl you fell in love with! She wasn't scared! All these girls die in a few years. I'm in my fourth, Spike. Don't you get it? My number is coming up quick and I'm afraid of it. I'm not that tough girl you love."

"You listen to me." He snarled and he shook her by the elbows, rough in his mounting desperation. "I'm in love with _you_ and of course you're scared! If you weren't bloody scared you'd be a fool!" He yanked her back to his chest when she tried to get away from his tight grip. "No. No, you stay with me and you listen to me, Slayer."

He took a deep breath, shuddering as the air tore through his unused lungs. "I'm terrified on all kinds of levels. I've killed thousands of people- an' I don't feel too bad about it. What the hell does that mean for me? What kind of man could love an' keep killin' someone else's lovers? Why'd it take me gettin' a soddin' chip in my head to make me slow down an' think? That scares me. That there's a monster in the man, an' I let him run the show for a damn long time."

"It was instinct."

"So is bein' afraid to die!" He felt her relax slightly and he loosened his grip, now stroking the sides of her arms, speaking intently. "An' I'm scared because it seems I was with a woman for a hundred years and I can't even remember her _face_. I'm scared that I'm never goin' to get my life back and all I know is I misused it."

"But the past is the past. W-we weren't going to worry too much about it." Buffy fought her arms free, but didn't pull back. She embraced him. "You are still who you are. You deserve someone strong and hard. Your Slayer."

"I _have _my Slayer. You don't know you weren't scared, do you? You just learned to deal with the fear. An' you'll learn again, we'll both learn whatever's worth learnin' again. An' to hell with whatever isn't. You make me feel alive, Slayer. We can't let this separate us- you're still the best thing that ever happened to me."

"So are you." She whispered. She closed her eyes and rested her forehead on his jaw. When she opened her eyes again, she tilted her head back to look into Spike's eyes.

"There's my girl..." He said in tones of equal parts wonder and raw desire. The fire was back.

"My man." She seized his black tee shirt at the neck and kissed him ruthlessly. "I'll learn anything I have to."

"I'll change whatever I need to." He bit her lips as he bruised her in a kiss, pushing her backwards, up the stairs.

"I still want you."

"Marry me?" He demanded an answer. It wasn't a proposal, it was a contract statement.

"You want who I am?" Her voice wavered just a little.

"_Marry me_." He bit off the words. He bit other things as well, teeth digging into her shoulder before he bodily picked her up and started trudging up the stairs.

"I will."

"Good. 'Cause I want you. I want the Slayer. I want my Poppet. I want that fragile girl who barely had the strength to let me make love to her, and I want the girl who let me sink my fangs into her an' drink her when she came."

"You'd only do that with someone strong, wouldn't you?" She gasped, his teeth worrying the scars on her neck as they climbed.

"I wouldn't do it if you weren't well. It's not about strength. Unless you mean strength of love."

"Show me." Buffy dug her hands into his jeans and forced them down.

"I will." He slid his hands up under her shirt and off over her head, bra followed, then his shirt, then her pants and underwear in a quick push.

She was on fire. It wasn't like this before. This was about ridding yourself of fear and reclaiming what was lost. "They can't take us apart."

"They bloody cannot." He agreed fiercely. "But you know- this life is full of the unpredictable things. 'Specially 'round here on the- what'd your man call it?"

"A hellmouth."

"Right. All sorts of bad. I think we better make every second count."

"What if they- what if we wake up one morning and we can't even remember this? This week? The good parts obviously, I'd love to forget having my hippopotamus electrified."

"Hippocampus." He kissed her, eyes wide and suddenly holding hints of fear. What if they couldn't remember this some day? What if those soldier boys came back, zapped them again? "I guess we have to make something strong enough to remember, Slayer."

It was desperate and sweet. Hard and loving all at once. Buffy knew why he seemed so passionate, because she was doing the same things to him. _If this was the only time- I'd want to put all of myself into it..._

_ Make this stick in your mind, man. Make it ingrained into your heart an' soul so they never take her from you again. _"I love you." He crushed her face to his, but gently, his hands digging into her soft yielding skin and fingers tangling in her sunshine locks.

"I love you." Was it wrong to use your slayer strength in this way? She hoped not. She didn't really care though. She held him hard enough to leave instant bruises and he only moaned for more. "Just stay. Stay inside." She whimpered when he entered her.

"I'll do that." He laughed softly, nuzzling her all over, soaking in her scent and her heat, the slickness of the skin where their bodies were locked. His head went back with a roar and he rutted in her, hard and fast.

_So hard. For the Slayer part of me._ Buffy felt black stars shooting behind her eyes and heard the springs in the bed complain. She felt little reminders of pain on the inside, but she didn't care. His lips came down to her ear, words as soft and gentle as his actions were hard.

"You're my beauty, d'you know that? I must've seen a million bad things in my long life. Falling in love with you knocked them right out of my head. Shh. Don't tell me I don't remember that. I know that. I know from the minute I worked with you something changed. Even if you didn't feel the same way."

"It doesn't matter. I feel the same way now." She opened her eyes to gaze into his, both of them noting the dark black wells of dilated pupils. Her lips parted slightly, just enough for her soft pink tongue to slide between her panting lips, letting the tip graze his sculpted pale mouth. "Show me."

"Show you?" Too lust crazed and love sick to compute, he didn't know what to show her. She had him laid bare anyway, body, heart, mind, all the life he knew and all the life someone had ever chronicled. Not much left to show.

"The strength." She arched.

Oh,_ that_. Spike's shoulders rippled and his visage transformed.

Her pupils went to pinpricks and back to pools when she watched him change.

"Nothin' you ain't seen before." He snarled, a low throaty purr that scraped her senses into primal overload.

"Just nothing I remember." She reached to touch him, trace the ridges. He rolled his head into her palm with a shiver, heightened senses causing her every touch to seem like a live wire brushing across his skin. Feeling satisfaction at what her touch did to his skin, she wondered what her taste would do to his tongue. Her fingers left his cheekbones and forehead, moving to pry open his mouth with two soft fingers, cutting her fingertips on his fangs.

"Hold still." He growled, and pressed a palm against her shoulder to still her hand.

"No. I did it on purpose." She confessed softly.

"Why?" He suckled on her fingertip, head rushing with a new and seemingly forgotten taste. _Human blood is amazing! Or is it just her blood? Is it that super human part of her, or just because I'm in love with her? Doesn't matter._

"I'm not weak anymore. This is what you want. I want to give it to you. This is what you're going to remember- forever. It had better be good."

"But I want it to be good for you. Memorable, Slayer."

"Then give me something to remember you by." She tossed her hair back and exposed the quivering column of her throat.

"That chip-"

"Might not work. And it won't hurt, will it, Baby?"

"Never. I'd never hurt my sweet, sweet Slayer. My pretty little Poppet." He breathed, kissing her neck, swathing his tongue along her scarred flesh.

"No. Not there." She lead him to the other side of her neck. "New marks. I don't want to get them confused, I want to _remember _these."

"Sweetheart-"

"My turn to shush. Shhh. Shh, Spike. I'm not scared. I'm in love. I'm not too weak. Show me. Give me new memories."

"I will." He smiled, thrilled at her desire for him. "But wait for it."

"Wait for it?" _No waiting. Waiting was past. Especially with her rapidly passing timeframe._

"I know when to bite. We're not there yet." He flipped her on top of him, and looked up at her lovingly, hands on her waist. "_You_ need to tell me when."

"But I-"

"You'll know. And I want to hear you say you're ready."

"You'll_ feel _it." She reminded him, squeezing him hard inside.

"I want my Baby to tell me when. I love you, an' I want you to be the one to say when. See? Then it isn't just me. It's us. And I only ever want it to be an us thing."

"I've decided I like you older and experienced." Buffy moaned at the romantic nature of his words.

He put a finger against her lips. "As far as I remember, Luv- my only experiences are with you."

"Ditto. And doesn't that just make it better somehow?" She leaned down, hands on his shoulders and pushing her knees back until she was brushing her breasts to his chest.

She was going to kill him. He was flammable after all, and she was flame in female form. Humans were so much hotter. So much wetter, so much more- alive._ Well of course, you bloody fool, you're not livin' and she is._

He was going to kill her. He was pounding his hips up in perfect time to her downstroke, pulling her apart with his hands on her thighs, splitting her open as deep as possible, burrowing inside. She didn't know if you could die of pleasure, but suddenly her rapidly approaching slayer expiration date didn't scare her half as much. "Spike..."

"Oh, I know. You're there." He hissed. "But you can go a little farther." He slid two curved fingers down and circled them hard around and under her firm, distended nub.

She let out a shriek of joy and he felt her wash her juices over him. But she didn't give him the request. He smiled to himself. Just as well. He could make it happen for her again- maybe even twice more before her vise like grip sent him over the edge.

"I love you, I love you Spike." She panted, crashing down on him, hips aquiver.

"I love you."

"I couldn't think straight- I forgot to ask." She nibbled his neck gently.

"Doesn't matter. Keep ridin'." He nuzzled her sweetly sweating skin happily.

"I can't. You jellified my muscles." She laughed softly.

"I'll have to do the work myself then." He effortlessly turned her onto her back, his hands sliding up her wrists until they were above her head, parallel with her shoulders. Her fingers laced easily, eagerly with his. "I'm gonna remember this forever. I don't care if they take every bit of my mind- this one's engraved on the heart." He whispered.

Her legs locked around him hard on his second thrust, his words and his thickness sliding hard into her still spasming tunnel sending her into a second release. "Spike, now! Please, now, show me!"

He dove and metamorphosed in the same moment, fangs unsheathed in the split second between hearing her cry and reaching her throat.

She gasped and the world went whirling into a blur until it pinpointed on two things, a tightness clenching and unclenching as her pussy muscles milked his cock in her orgasmic release, and an answering spasming, milking rhythm at her neck. In connection, the reaction was explosive.

He was drunk, he was high, and he could go for hours. But a little voice reminded him not to. Drink until you feel the blood stiffening you for one frantic thrust- and burst inside. When his member spasmed in, his fangs spasmed out with a jerk, blood wetting his lips and trailing down his chin, too impassioned to be neat, to be suave, This was raw, this had to mark and stain. It had to _count_.

She watched him through sleepy eyes, this half-human warrior covered in her blood._ And I'm one with him. He marked me inside and out. I'm full of his essence, he's full of mine._

"Slayer?" He panted desperately.

"So good." She whispered.

He wiped his tongue across his lips, amazed when her fingers started scooping the drips off his chin and into his now human mouth. "I love you, Pet."

"I love you, Spike."

He spooned himself to her face to face, looking into the thoroughly sated eyes of his future wife. "There. I think we'll remember that."

_To Be Continued..._


	8. Chapter 8

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Notes: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Dedicated to Lithium Reaper, Hannah the Bloody, DLillith21, GoodfortheSoul, McPastey, ginar369, and Lil-Leti_

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part VIII

Buffy stirred in her sleep, nose wrinkling in disgust. "Spike lips. Lips of Spike!" His mocking voice, taunting her about "Buffy taste" and their first song. Her own mocking voice. "Gil-iles. I accidentally killed Spike! That's okay, right?".

Willow's voice and her own, an exchange in a dimly lit room with two beds. "Well, I mean, what's the rush? Spike can't hurt anyone, right? And I figured since I'm kinda grievey, would could, uh..you know, have a girl's night. We could eat sundaes and watch Steel Magnolias and you can tell me how, at least I don't have diabetes.

" Will, I can't hang out with you until I get Spike back to Giles, you know that. Okay? I'll be back as soon as I can. I promise."

They were still talking but the scene had changed. All her friends were there. Spike was there. Tied to a chair, looking murderously at all of them, especially at her and Willow.

"We may be into a forgetting spell later. I _loved_ him. We were _betrothed_." In her sleep, Buffy's face twitched into an expression of disgust.

"Well, at-at least you were getting along." The redhead appeased.

"But we weren't. I mean, I wasn't even _nice_. And the bad-boy thing — over it."

"Shit!" Spike's voice jolted her awake. "Bloody, fucking hell! Bloody, buggering _fuck_!"

"Spike!" Buffy shot up from her pillow, grabbing his arms as they rested on his knees, his hands cradling his head.

"Oh, Poppet..." He looked at her with a sick sense of sorrow and dread on his face. "Oh, _Poppet_. Give me one more kiss?"

"One more?" Buffy shook her head, trying to understand him. "Why one more? What about- what about lots more?" Her voice constricted with sudden tearfulness.

"Just kiss me." He drew her to him of one feverish, slow burning embrace. "My Slayer. You will be, you know. Even when you remember..."

"Spike, you're scaring me. You're really, _really _scaring me." Buffy refused to release his neck. "What happened? What did you remember?" He was silent, looking at her with sorrowful blue eyes. "Spike?"

"Don't make me tell you." He whispered. _I don't want to tell her that I remember hating her. That it was mutual, that we were vile to each other, tit for tat we scraped out insults. That I wanted to rip her throat out. An' even helpless, I wanted to use her, after she flaunted her neck at me. That all that love- was just a spell and the hate was always underneath. And after the spell- it was still hate, but then it was a sick and twisted desire underneath it. I wanted to kill her. I'd have fucked her first- well- no- not exactly, because she would have died first. I'd have- would I have used her after? Am I that depraved? God, I hope not. The books never mentioned anything that horrible. _He wanted to be sick, he wanted to forget, and never remember that he'd ever dreamed of doing anything to her. He wished he could keep the last hundred years locked away from himself. How many more sins did he have in there, and had he ever even cared?_ How can you want to kill something you know you're gonna die without? _"Don't ask me to tell you." He pleaded.

She paused, open mouthed. Her jaw worked silently, opening and shutting twice, before she nodded. "Lay back down?" He jerked his head once, like a marionette with a string at his neck. He rested on the pillow, and immediately pulled her to his chest. She could feel the lump in his throat moving up and down as he swallowed.

"I won't lie to you." He whispered into her hair. "Jus'- jus' want another hour before I tell you what I remember."

"Would you like to know what I dreamed about?" She replied, hands curling tightly against his chest.

He heard the fear in her voice. "Bad, was it?"

"Yeah."

"I'll always listen to you. Go on, then."

"I want to tell you a story. We're in it."

"Another tale of Slayer and Spike?" He laughed once, an empty sound in an empty house.

"Sort of." She licked her lips to make it easier to speak. But it was not easier. It wasn't real. That beautiful night. The beautiful life we were planning. Does he already know? He must- he must know, what else could hurt this bad? Not even memories of trying to kill one another could hurt as bad as knowing that all the love they treasured was based on a lie. No, not even a lie. A spell. A stupid spell. Someone playing with their lives, and it was worse than some big government agency doing it. It had been done by a friend. The only thing that made it bearable was knowing it had happened because of a mistake made in desperate grief. Buffy knew about that type of feeling, she'd felt it quite a lot this week."I need you to just- listen to me. Remember what you promised?"

"I made you lots of promises. I stand by every one of 'em." Spike answered hoarsely.

"So do I." She nodded on his shoulder, meeting his eyes.

"Here goes. Um- you know- you're like way ancient, and apparently you learned how to talk like some fancy poet in the last century and half."

"Am I bein' insulted or praised?" He joked, trying to ease the tension, though it was a failed attempt.

"Praised. I'm not a good storyteller. Okay?"

"Fine. As long as you tell it- I love it." He looked up at the ceiling, swallowing again. Another pretty tale to comfort each other. But he would love it. Love every false memory they made for each other, so much sweeter than the ones they had apparently lived.

"There was this girl. A witch. She had someone she loved very, very much."

"A witch? Red hair? Stutters when she gets upset? Bakes when she feels bad?"

"Yeah." Buffy swallowed. No. No, he couldn't tell the story. It had to be her way. Or it wouldn't work. "She was in love. But the guy- the guy had done something bad. There was a monster in him."

"We're still on about Red, yeah?"

"No talking. Listening only." She told him firmly. "But, yes. Willow. I mean- the red haired girl. No, I do mean Willow. Just listen!" She softly bit his chest in frustration and he moaned. She bit back an answering cry. "This man that she loved- had a monster inside him. He couldn't control it. So he left her, feeling like he had to protect her, or maybe that he wasn't good enough for her. So- s-so he just- left. Left her alone, broken hearted and lost. Which was a really, really, _incredibly_ stupid thing to do and if anyone else ever tries that-" here she rose up on her elbows and glared down at Spike, "he will be in a world of pain!"

"Understood." He smiled faintly, one hand caressing her angry face. "Understood, Slayer. The man shouldn't run, even if the monster's in control. 'Cause the man leavin' hurts just as bad as the monster stayin' ever could, is that it?"

"That's it. I knew you were smart." She pressed her lips to his. "Okay. No more interruptions. Well- try. I know you're stubborn and you never shut up- even when I threatened to gag you -" Her words died and their eyes locked. _I threatened to gag him. For real. Just because he annoyed me. Oh my God... _Silence reigned for a heartbeat.

"That's true." He whispered. "Go on. Tell me the story."

She nodded, voice slowly coming back. "The girl had a broken heart. And she tried to- to do some kind of spell. To make things better? Or maybe to make true loves reunite? I'm not sure what happened. But the spell had unexpected consequences. No. It was worse. It all went to complete, utter hell!"

"Or heaven." She heard him mutter softly. Spike looked up at her again, feeling her jump under his hand. "Steady on." He murmured, giving her an encouraging nod.

"See- the spell, made all kinds of weird things happen. Including- Spike and Slayer- falling in love. So in love that they decided to get married. And it was the happiest, purely happiest night of their lives."

"Yes. It was." Spike stroked her hair. "Am I in trouble for interrupting?"

"Not this time." She smiled. "But it was only a spell. That happy night? And when it was done- they hated each other again."

"Only hate?" _Mine wasn't only hate. Desire, lust- it's gotta be better than nothin'._

"Well- maybe some kind of -lingering attraction. 'Cause he is hot. And he obviously thinks I'm sexy. At least my neck."

"Oh, Slayer, not like that, Precious, I-"

"Shh. Now you're going to get in trouble if you don't keep quiet. Let me tell you what happened after the spell went away." She swallowed. "The next night, Spike and Slayer went out to find these commandos that were messing things up. When they tracked them, they were attacked, and some flashy thingy erased all but their last memories. Working together- and falling in love. They didn't know it wasn't true."

Spike opened his mouth, and then shut it, gritting his teeth. She couldn't be throwing it away. She just swore up and down to keep their promises. And then she was so sweet in her telling. She wasn't the type to let him down easy- not the girl he'd seen before and after their engagement. A bitch before, a brave soul after, but both were strong and to the point.

"Because they didn't know it wasn't true- they gave it their best shot. They showed what good lovers they could be. Every day they took care of each other, and worked together, an-and even when they were lost, or sad, or scared, or mad- they stuck together." Buffy's voice was shaking. "He thought she was good to him, didn't he?"

"Oh yes. Yes, he thought she was the best girl in the world. An' he loved her so much." He stroked her hair comfortingly.

"He said they'd make it, even if it was just the two of them, forever, fighting things they couldn't remember, fighting the whole world and everyone in it. And the girl- didn't know she was his enemy. And he didn't know he was hers."

Buffy paused for a long time, and Spike felt wet drops striking his chest, smelt salt, knew she was crying. "What happened to them, Poppet?"

"I don't know the end of the story, Spike. I know the middle part."

"Tell me the middle. I'll help you find the ending."

"The girl fell in love with the man. For real." She paused. "No spells. No mind alterations. Just because she watched him and saw who he really could be. Slayer fell in love with Spike."_ Please let him tell me it's the same. Please..._

"That's good. Because he fell in love with her, too."

"Oh, God! Thank you." She let out a shuddering breath, and they kissed, crying, laughing, stroking each other as one. "I was so scared. The dream- all the memories-"

"I had 'em ,too. I knew. I know that's why I was sure... Buffy, we hated each other."

"I know. I know that. I'm sorry. I mean, I'm not sorry, but it's better now. I choose to love you, do you choose to love me back?"

"Of course. I meant it last night. Marry me. I marked you. You're mine, I'm yours, I don't want anyone else." He winced. "I have done- some terrible things, and had some terrible urges I didn't even act on. But I'm gonna do better."

"I know. Me, too. A clean start, a blank page."

"Clean start..." Spike repeated the words slowly, hands suddenly digging into her skin more tightly. "A clean start. Slayer. We've-"

"NO!" Buffy silenced him. "Don't you dare think that, Spike! Maybe I didn't fall in love with you before. But- couldn't we have fallen in love this week?"

"Luv, I agree. I hate to think this, Slayer, but I gotta talk it out. 'Cause I already spent a week livin' a lie, an' fortunately it worked, but I don't want to spend the rest of my misused life that way. Slayer, neither of us really like each other, according to history- aren't we jus'- are we jus' r_eprogrammed_ to love?"

The thought took time to process, a longer time than usual, as they were so scared by the thought that maybe this had all been manufactured. No, it couldn't be, they both seemed to decide. What they felt was true, in spite of knowing the charade that had sparked it.

"Scary thought." Buffy finally whispered. "But it was our choice. I don't feel _programmed_, Spike. It feels natural."

"Maybe that is how it's s'posed to seem, otherwise people'd never go along with it. Don't get me wrong, if this is reprogramming, I'll take it, 'cause I don't want to lose you. But I gotta know."

"It hasn't been three weeks yet, not twenty one days. This is a choice- not a program, we can break it or choose to go on. No one is telling us what to do." Buffy bit her lip and looked pleadingly into his eyes. "I really don't think they can make you fall in love- maybe teach you to act a certain way, show affection, even physically get close- but you have to _feel_ love, don't you?" She asked desperately. "Spike, help me remember if this is love, it feels so real, it feels different than the spell, it feels... feels true. B-but, I don't have any memories to base it on, I guess. I don't want to be wrong..."

Spike cupped her chin, slowly shaking his head. "In my long life that I don't remember, I do _know_ what it is like to love. And this is it." He paused. "From what I can figure out, no one had time to make us do anything. I loved you- 'cause I wanted to. I thought you were mine to care for an' be with, so I gave in to it. Maybe started out with a false idea, but the rest- that's all me." He willed his voice to be calm. "Why'd you love me?"

"Because I wanted to. Because I knew you made me happy inside. And even now that I know that one night wasn't real- I still feel happy about the days after. The being with you part, not the getting fried part. Can't I just love you because I want to? Do I need a lot of reasons?"

"Nope. But if you were 'programmed' I can bet we'd both have damn fine lists of reasons and counter reasons and prolly stats to back us. This is the real deal."

Her face broke into a million watt smile and she rolled easily on top of him, looking down at him adoringly. "Hi. I love you. Me, well- as me as I am, is in love with you. That sounds wrong. Sorry, grammar fart."

"Oh, God. I know it ain't a program." He laughed and lifted her up in his arms. "No one but you would ever say 'grammar fart'."

"I'm unique."

"Very."

"But you love that about me."

"Very."

"Is that all you can say?"

"Nope. Go get in the shower, woman, I'm comin' in after you."

"No." She pouted. "Put me back on the bed."

"We gotta get ready to go. We were up late, an' it's past time to be up."

"But this is our first morning as a really engaged for real, couple. You did ask me to marry you, right?"

"I did indeed." He dropped her back on the bed. "I bit you." He looked at her neck clearly for the first time. "But- if we weren't lovers before, those old scars aren't mine. And I bit you. I bit you for real." He touched her neck softly with one fingertip.

"Someone else got me. I know." She whispered. " I figured it out, too late, but it's okay. I'm still glad we did it. It felt amazing." Her eyelids flickered halfway closed, giving him a seductive leer. "You can do it again."

He fell on top of her with snarling purr. Do you realize all these times, all these firsts- were firsts?"

"Wow." Buffy nodded. She suddenly beamed up at him. "Do you remember the story about our first time? In this room?"

"Yes." Spike nodded. They exchanged a look. "I have a lighter in my coat. I saw candles in the dining room."

Buffy squealed. "I'll find some music, you find the candles."

"I'm sorry it wasn't actually like this the first time." He called as he left the room.

"That's okay! We're getting to make the stories come true. Take that memory messer-upper! We're gonna do things our way." She shouted back happily.

_God, I love that girl. For real. Something I just _know.

Giles walked in through the garage this time, eyes carefully downcast. It was late. He'd patrolled briefly last night and he was tired and sore, not used to doing what Buffy so easily managed each night. Between trepidation, tiredness, and a lazy Sunday morning, he didn't feel like rushing over there. Not after leaving them alone all night with the books.

He was unsure what would greet him this morning. A slayer and a pile of dust? Two sobbing people? A couple copulating on the couch? _Please God, no._

He did not expect to see a couple sitting on the couch, reading side by side- Buffy sporting a high pony tail and fresh fang marks. _Fresh fang marks? _"You bastard!" Giles roared and launched.

Spike acted on instinct and lunged- but Buffy was the one who was in between. Giles got smacked down by his petite, sweet Slayer. "What are you yelling for? You already knew all the bad stuff!" Buffy shouted as he reeled.

"You bit her! He bit you!"

"I let him! I love him, it's a- an intimacy thing!" Buffy blushed. "I'm not ashamed. Well- kinda- but not because it's him. I'm ashamed because I know you think it's wrong and you make me feel wrong- but you can't me feel wrong anymore!" She said furiously.

"I cannot do this anymore. I have tried, I have weighed every option, and I thought I acted for the best, but no, I have made a bloody mess of it all. Buffy, you and Spike were-"

"Under a spell?" Spike finished with a smirk.

"Wh- but- wh-when did you realize?" Giles stuttered. If Spike had been playing them all...

"This morning." Buffy supplied.

"When did you get bitten?"

"Last night. And this morning." Buffy blushed but smiled prettily. "Guess what, Giles? We got re-engaged."

"Oh, no, dear Lord, Buffy, Spike, listen to me, this is impossible. Didn't you read? Did you notice that you two-"

"Tried to murder one another? Also made a truce. And then tried a bit more murder, in the last month or so, in fact." Spike tapped the unfinished volume of Buffy's Watcher's Diary. The spell isn't in here. The engagement bit."

"I've had a rather busy week, and I'm behind." Giles grumbled. "Nonetheless-"

"Nonetheless, we've been given a second chance at life. And love." Buffy took his hands and looked at him with wide, girlish eyes. "Please don't make trouble."

Giles had a hard time resisting any of her whiles. But this one- this one he resisted. "I think we need to talk about this. Your friends, and you and I. Privately."

"Hell, no. Separate me from her? So you can drag her off an' lock her up like some villain in the fairy tales, keep the princess away from her lover? I don't think so." Spike snarled.

"You have my word-"

"As what? A Watcher? You drugged her up an' left her for some bloody torture test." Spike slammed the book containing Buffy's third year as a slayer down in front of Giles' feet. "I don't trust your word. Least when I tried to kill her, I was straight forward about it."

"Oh, yes, very admirable. Let me just-" Giles found himself unceremoniously interrupted when Buffy dragged Spike from the room. "Buffy?"

"We're going, right?"

"But-"

"No buts. If I read that thingy in book three right, you aren't officially the boss of me, so I don't have to listen unless I want to. I want Spike to come with me, please."

"Ohhh. Oh, very well. But you may not like everything you hear."

"I already don't like everything I hear." Spike grumbled, and the three went to the garage and then headed to Giles' place.

"As it's Sunday, everyone is able to meet, and spend the entire day." Giles told them with forced cheer

"Oh, goody." Spike whispered mockingly.

"Hush." Buffy kissed him quickly and they rode the remainder of the trip in silence.

"Buffy and Spike remember the cause of their engagement." Giles began the "Scooby" meeting.

"Oh, thank God!" Xander cried, head thrown back in relief. "Oh, thank you sweet Lord of Mercy. If I had to watch you making goo-goo eyes for one-more-" Xander's voice slowed. "Uh- Buff? Why are you still holding hands?"

"We're still engaged." Spike laughed at Xander's crestfallen look.

"What? How? Why? What?" Xander demanded, voice rising.

"I think I can answer that." Buffy laughed. "But, let me do it the way I want to do it. Sit." Everyone sat. Spike still held her hand, but Buffy, seeing Xander had tunnel vision locked on their joint appendages, reluctantly released Spike's fingers. "I want to say thank you. You guys have been with me through all kinds of weirdness and you've all gotten hurt, or captured, or- or other really bad things have happened to you. I want to say I'm sorry, that I feel your pain and sacrifice- but I don't. I don't because I don't remember it, I just read about it. Someday it's going to seem really real again, and then I'm going to thank you a lot better. But for now- just thank you."

"You're welcome. We care for you very deeply." Giles said with humble sincerity.

"You're our bestest bud, Buffy. We've got your back." Xander cried, and Willow supported him with a loud, "Yeah!" Anya nodded, seeming to consider the statement carefully before doing so.

"Okay. So that was me being all nice. And now I have to say that I'm just really hurt that you didn't tell me the truth about Spike and I."

"But Buffy! You were so lost and you trusted him and-"Willow yelped.

"Blame Giles. I thought we should tell you." Anya nodded.

"Buff, listen-" Xander protested.

"Oh, really!" Giles sputtered.

"OI!" Spike shouted. Then, in a much gentler voice. "Slayer was speaking."

"Thank you." Buffy winked at him before turning a pointed gaze at her friends. "You must have had really good reasons for what you did. But you could have screwed up my life completely. If it wasn't Spike, I could have woken up this morning and felt used and ashamed and a thousand times more lost than I already did."

"We knew that was a risk. We knew that there would be some bad payback, from whatever action we chose." Giles whispered hoarsely.

"In our defense- you and Spike are scary together. Even when you're all zonked out on brain frying stuff." Anya interjected. "We knew you liked each other and felt safe and comfortable together. More than you did with us. If we'd tried to separate you, or told you were victims of a magic spell, you would have run screaming into the night and would probably be guests of the US Military right now."

"We did try. Gently." Willow's eyes seemed moist.

"We didn't try hard enough." Xander's voice grated accusingly.

"Okay. All good points." Buffy smiled at them unexpectedly. "So I should be pissed at you. But instead I want to thank you guys. You kept us safe, you listened to me, even though it was probably hard and worrying for you to watch. But what you did allowed something good to happen."

"Slayer an' me are together properly now. For that, I got nothin' but thanks." Spike spoke up quietly.

"I think I've found a really great friend and lover. No- don't try to talk me out of what I want! " Buffy warned Xander and Giles, who opened their mouths. "You said to trust my instincts- my instincts didn't lie, and neither did yours- you knew enough to let me have someone to love and trust, you knew I had picked him. My instincts didn't pick wrong."

"Buffy, this is sweet, but it's wrong. Instincts aren't infallible." Giles tried to explain.

"Point of fact." Spike smiled disdainfully. "Your own notes mention that Buffy's instincts are the finest you've ever seen. That countless times you thought she was on the ropes and she got herself out by 'sheer instinct, skill, and resourcefulness'. I quoted you, Giles. Be pleased. Your pupil's done you proud."

"We love each other. You can't reprogram us to love someone, we talked it out. This is the real deal." Buffy concluded and leaned back against his chest.

Stunned silence greeted the announcement. Spike raised one hand, and cocked his brows inquisitively. "This would be the time to challenge us. Let's get it done an' over with."

"There's no challenging. It's the Slayer. She's going to do what she wants." Anya said complacently. "Can we go home now?"

A confused babble of voices echoed her remarks. Anya sighed. "I guess not." As Buffy got swarmed by Giles, Xander and Willow, she went over to Spike. "So, are you good now?"

"I guess. I guess I gotta be." He shrugged. "I think I could deal with that. She's very motivatin'."

"The sex is good?"

"Brilliant." Spike whispered in a smug voice.

"You must feel like virgins, since you have no memory of prior sexual experiences."

"Not quite." He shifted uncomfortably.

"Well, I've been around over a thousand years. If you have any questions on the subject, I can-"

"Hold on, hold on." Spike raised his hand. "A thousand years? You a vamp?"

"Demon. Ex-demon."

Spike leaned forward in his chair with a smile. "You- you done some bad in that thousand years?"

"Ohh, the stories I could tell you." She sighed, shaking her head.

"I'm not too keen to hear the gory details. But you could help me with another bit. Tell me how you managed to get that lot in there to see what you _are_, not what you _were_."

"And then we can talk about sex?"

"I could always do with suggestions." Spike chuckled.

"This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Anya sighed. "That's from a movie."

"Do tell."

Buffy was talking with Willow while Giles and Xander seemed to be having a hissing match in the kitchen. "Okay. Shoot. Tell me why it's wrong, yadda, yadda, yadda."

"Buffy, I don't know if you remember this part, but, you told me after the spell broke, that you were over your bad boy thing. That you wanted a nice normal guy." Willow pleaded. _If she picks Spike permanently, I'll be baking cookies for the next ten years..._

"I remember. Wasn't I talking about Riley?"

"Yes! Good job, Buffy, that's right!"

Buffy tried not to yell at the patronizing tone. She wasn't being potty trained, she was recovering from a brain injury. "Riley turned out to be a government secret agent spy guy demon hunter who fried my brain and then stalked you. I don't think he counts as normal."

"But- but okay. Fine. But Spike isn't normal either."

"Willow. My memory is hazy about the conversation. But, I have had some realizations about 'bad boys'. Does it mean you shouldn't love something bad, if it's good for you? If it's good for you, can it be bad?"

"No. I mean, yes. I mean- I'm confuzzled."

"I feel weird bringing this up, because my mind is super sketchy on it." Buffy began timidly. "But the guy you loved? Was he a vampire?"

Willow looked pained and shook her head. "A werewolf. Oz."

"Oh, right, I'm sorry, I think I did know that. Willow, I'm sorry I don't know what I'm supposed to know." Buffy fumbled out an apology, despite the fact that she felt she had no reason to do so. Willow's miserable face just brought that out in her. "But a werewolf is something humans consider 'bad' right?"

"Oz wasn't like that! He had no control over what happened to him and he never wanted to hurt anyone. He slept in a cage three nights month when he was wolfy."

"Spike probably didn't mean to be someone's dinner either, Willow, but he was. And what would happen if Oz wasn't caged?"

"He bit."

"Spike has a chip. He can't bite- well- he can't _hurt._" Buffy grinned and for the first time she saw the girl who was her best friend, a giggly, share secrets type of friend, looking back at her.

"It doesn't hurt?" Willow leaned forward curiously, eyeing her friend's neck.

"Huge no." Buffy whispered and they both giggled suddenly, eyes glowing at each other. "Sorry- more of that later- when we get to re-know each other."

"I'm looking forward to that. The re-knowing part. Not the sex details part. ALthough- some, maybe. 'Cause we used to do that." Willow beamed.

"I'm looking forward to it, too." Buffy meant it, and relaxed a little. "Spike is doing something to control himself, just like your Oz did. But my big point is that you loved Oz. You still do, and even if he hurt someone, even if he was bad those three days a month, would you stop loving him the other days?"

"Never." Willow whispered. "Maybe I should...but he's not in control at the time. The wolf is. I wouldn't stop loving him for that."

"Same with me. I can't separate the good, the bad, and the man. I just love him. Who he is."

Willow gulped. "He wants to be good?"

"He wants to make better use of the next hundred years than the last hundred anyway." Buffy smiled softly. "Could you give him a chance? You gave Angel another chance. And he- he killed someone we all loved."

"I'll give him a second chance." Willow whispered. "But honestly, Buffy- it's more like the twentieth."

"However many it was, Will. Just give him one more."

"I will." Willow murmured, opening her arms. They hugged quickly and Willow moved off.

"Giles, do you think you could come help me on the laptop? I'm trying to do the fourth level of encryption on the Initiative website." Willow asked, breaking her emotional silence.

"That's not exactly my-"

"It's in ancient Greek."

"Oh! Then it is in my wheelhouse. But- but just until Xander's finished. I must speak to Buffy."

"Ahn? What are you telling Spike?" Xander, no longer focused on Giles and their semi-argument, heard Anya and Spike laughing and chatting away like old friends.

"Only good things, mate." Spike smiled- the first genuine smile Xander had ever received from him.

"Anya, this better not be one of those private things should stay private that you are making public, Honey." Xander reminded her nervously.

"But all the others are very uptight about my favorite subject. Spike isn't!"

"Oh, God..."

"Xander, deal with Buffy now, deal with your chatty girlfriend later." Giles prompted firmly.

"Right." Xander steered himself to Buffy. "Look, Buffy, I don't know if you know this term, but I'm gonna teach you about it. You might be experiencing it."

"She isn't." Giles muttered.

"You agreed I could talk to her about it!"

"What is it, Xander?"

"Stockholm Syndrome. A victim begins to sympathize with the person holding them hostage."

"Who held me hostage?" Buffy blinked. "When was this? I don't remember- oh, was it that demon guy? Ethan?"

"What? No. No, I'm talking about Spike. When you two were in that cave, and when you're alone together. Is he telling you things, making you feel like you've never really understood him? That you see him as a good guy now, even though technically you know he isn't?"

"You're not explaining it right." Giles interjected.

"Shut up!" Xander said in a slightly high pitched tone. "Buffy?"

"I do understand him better. He understands me better too. But the situation is wrong. I'm not being held hostage. I willingly go with him, I choose to go with him. And in the cave- we were both hostages of the circumstances."

"But what did he do to you, say to you, to get you to trust him?"

"He said he loved me, then he took care of me, protected me, kept me warm, found me some water, and told me stories when I got scared." She glared at him. "You might want to stop talking about this syndrome. I don't think I have it, and it's making me love him more and more when I remember what we did together, for each other." She gave him a half-grin. "Isn't that what you want, Xander? To stop my loving him?"

"Buffy, he's bad. He's killed hundreds, thousands of people."

"So did Angel."

"I don't like Angel."

"That doesn't surprise me somehow." Buffy sighed.

"Buffy, Spike is different. He doesn't have a soul."

"Of course he has a soul."

"No! Vampires don't."

"Angel did. I read about it."

"But- Buffy- the" Xander never really understood vampire theology and he tried another tactic. "Spike can never be good without a soul, okay?"

"Xander? What's Anya?" Buffy suddenly remembered something she'd read and something she'd heard yesterday, and pieces were slowly drifting together, everything moving more slowly than usual because she was having so much bombardment in her head.

"Human."

"But before?"

"She's um, was-"

"A vengeance demon. One of the best. The champion of scorned women the world over, so I've just been told." Spike's vampire hearing could hear almost all of Buffy's conversations but out of respect he tried to stay out of them. But this one was too good to pass up on. He wanted to be a better person, not a soddin' priest.

"Stop!" Anya blushed and tried to look modest.

"A vengeance demon. Did she ever kill anyone?" Buffy asked Xander directly. He faltered and his mouth refused to form words.

"Anya, could you answer? Your man looks a bit apoplectic an' tongue tied."

"Oh, I killed thousands. And I began a few wars. A few plagues. The plagues were an error though, I didn't take into account the women and children dying."

"Ahn! You never-" Xander gaped at her.

"You told me it gave you the creeps. After I mentioned penises falling off." Anya justified the lack of information.

"Lord, an' they think I'm bad." Spike winced and crossed his legs. "Bloody hell, I never did that. I_ know_ I never, ever did that."

"Xander- I think you have to break up with Anya before you can lecture me about my dating choices anymore." Buffy smiled, trying not to guffaw at Xander's beyond shocked expression.

"But I'm good now! Xander cares about me, and I care about him!" Anya leaped from her chair and ran to her boyfriend. "Don't you? You're not going to break up with me just because you hate Spike's guts, right?"

"Of course not, Sweetie." Xander soothed. He looked between Buffy and Spike a few times, and then grunted and jabbed his finger in Spike's general direction. "This isn't over!"

"That's a line from a movie, too." Anya said cheerfully. Spike put his head back and laughed.

"Mrrhrm?" Giles cleared his throat and took Buffy's elbow, drawing her away from Spike, who was about to roll to the floor with laughter, and Xander and Anya, who were arguing and kissing at the same time.

"Could we have a break from the bash my love parade?" Buffy pouted.

"Certainly." Giles nodded. "Briefly. Buffy, this has been a terrible week for you. I realize that. But things are getting terrible out there, too. I know you might not be ready for this yet, but I want to ask you to accompany me on a test run."

"A test run of what?"

"Your patrolling abilities. We'll train first, go over some basic maneuvers, make sure your reaction times are quick enough, and then I'd like to take you out for a short sweep of a few cemeteries."

Buffy gulped. "That's my job, huh? My sacred duty?"

"It is."

"I can't return it?"

"No." He smiled gently.

"Then- yeah. We can go. One cemetery. One! To start. And Spike comes."

"So much for the change of subject." Giles sighed and removed his glasses. "Buffy, dear, are you sure, you'd like Spike to come with us? Didn't you read about him, about his attempts to kill you and the others, Willow, Xander, Angel?

"I know. And it's wrong and terrible. But when we didn't know our past, it was just him and me against the world and we fit together like nothing I've ever seen. It was a tragedy to lose part of our lives, even temporarily, but in a way its a gift. If you could wipe out all the bad memories- and just forgive instead of fearing and hating, wouldn't you like to do it?"

"Nothing would please me more, than to give you, to give all of us a fresh start. Take us back to a time when we were happy. But things cannot always be as we wish. Taking Spike out with you adds another variable into an already simmering mess of unknowns."

"How will you ever trust him if he doesn't get to try? How can he prove himself if he doesn't get a chance?" Buffy put her hands on her hips. "Are you proud of all the things you did?" She stared him down.

"No." He answered softly, memories of Eyghon and demons, drugs and vandalism, Ethan, and dark magic swarmed in his head. More recently, his betrayal of Buffy, the Cruciamentum, the failure to protect her from Angel, the Master, the Mayor, Faith, the Initiative and even, in a way that was different, Spike. "No, I am not proud of all I have done, or failed to do."

"Neither is he. Neither am I." Buffy's eyes blinked suddenly and she wiped at them. "You don't have to give him a chance, you know. I will give him one anyway. I'm asking you to do it, too, because I want you to stay in my life. I know- that you got fired because you loved me like a father. You tried to help me even though it was some sacred quest-y mission thing that you weren't supposed to help me with at all. I'm giving Spike another chance, no matter what you decide. Clean start. I'll give us one, too, if you want that."

"I want nothing more." Giles flung his arms around her. "I always knew you were an extraordinary woman." He whispered into her hair.

"Thank you. I apparently had this hardass Watcher as a role model." She smiled back.

"Hands off my woman." Spike came up to the embracing pair, but his words were friendly in tone.

Giles released her and looked sternly at Spike."I'll need to talk to you about your role in patrolling with Buffy, if you're quite done rolling on my carpet."

"My pleasure." Spike inclined his head, equally serious, taking Buffy's hand.

Xander watched the three head to the loft, apparently to talk in private and look at Giles' personal collection of weaponry. "He sold out." Xander gaped.

"We all did." Anya shrugged cheerfully.

"We did not!" Willow disagreed. "We're simply keeping an open mind. Being forgiving."

"Great. Buffy loses her mind, and the rest of you join her." Xander groused, flopping angrily onto the couch in a sulk.

"You're whining. It's immature." Anya said bluntly, coming to cradle his head in her lap.

"I'm not whining. I'm objecting at a higher pitch than normal." Xander defended himself.

"Not to be the vampire's advocate, but we are giving Anya another chance after a thousand years of death and demony badness. We could give Spike another try after a tenth of that." Willow also joined her friends on the sofa.

"Mmf." Xander made a noncommittal noise.

"I could make special cheer up latkes." Willow wheedled.

"Mm?" Xander looked slightly more cheerful. "Grandma Lovowitz's recipe?"

"The very same. Swiped from the Rosenberg table by one Xander Harris for the last fifteen years."

"That's a nice start." Anya praised. "And I could get out the new nightie I bought, the on with the -"

Anya got cut off by Xander's hand clapping over her mouth. "Private thing staying private, Honey." He laughed nervously. She pouted and looked wounded. "But the thought did cheer me up. Thank you, Sweetie."

Willow got up, muttering. "Maybe with Spike around I'll finally get left out of share-a-thons from the Pleasure Dome. Anya can tell him, instead of me. Thank God!"

"I heard that!" Anya called.

"Me, too!" Spike shouted down the steps. "Good plan, Red! I feel more at home already."

Xander groaned pitifully. "Wills? Can you skip the latkes and head straight for the rugelach instead?"

"Here." Anya got up and tugged him towards the bathroom. "This is faster. And more fun."

"But-"

"Shut up and enjoy it." Anya giggled.

"But, everyone is right upstairs or outside!"

"And I'll tell them all about it, if you don't just shut up and play." Anya grinned wickedly.

"Spike is a bad influence on you." Xander groaned as his zipper was slid down.

"You can thank him later." She purred, and licked her lips.

_To be continued..._


	9. Chapter 9

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Notes: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Dedicated to Lithium Reaper, Hannah the Bloody, DLillith21, GoodfortheSoul, McPastey, ginar369, fortunefavors, and Lil-Leti_

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part IX

"We do this every night?" Buffy hissed, crouching with Giles behind a large headstone.

"Almost. And to be honest, you do it by yourself quite often."

"Oh, goody." Buffy rolled her eyes and clutched her stake harder. Giles said her reflexes were good, that she wasn't physically unable to patrol, it would all be in the mind, either instincts helping her, or fear preventing her.

"This lot tags along?" Spike hissed, jerking his head to the dubious cavalry behind them.

"Not always. Usually for large tasks." Giles scanned the cemetery nervously. This was a mess, looking out for both soldiers and vampires and demons. With a confused slayer, her new,but powerless vampire boyfriend, and three helpful but not entirely successful teenagers no less.

"You said no large tasks!" Buffy pummeled his arm once, knocking him over. "Sorry. Superpowers, forgot. But you said this was a little test, see how I do, and then Spike and I can go back to my mother's house. This is the last night we can stay there before she comes back from wherever, and we have a lot of planning stuff to do!"

"Buffy, focus on the job. Killing vampires and demons. Honing your instincts. Patrolling. Think, dear, isn't anything coming back?"

"You know it brasses her off when you ask her stuff like that." Spike muttered. "If it had made her remember, she'd have gone 'Oh, I remember somethin'!'. You twit." Hie finished under his breath.

"Nothing is coming back except for the idea that I hate this and I must never get to go to parties or shop, and I bet I have a really bad sleep schedule." Buffy mumbled.

"Look, Slayer, the sooner you get out an' kill somethin', the sooner the old man will let us get home." Spike pushed himself towards Buffy's ear. "C'mon, Pet, we've spent all day trainin'. You an' me are skilled."

"But you can't hit anything." Buffy took his hand worriedly.

"Well- I'm fast an' strong an' I can get 'em out of your way maybe. I can be your eyes an' ears, I'm supersonic there."

"Shouldn't we be moving if we're patrolling?" Anya asked loudly, earning herself five violent shushing noises. "Just asking!" She pouted and moved closer to Xander.

"She has a point." Giles sighed. "Let's move."

"I just walk around?"

"You'll start sensing where trouble lies, I hope. Check all fresh graves."

"This. Sucks." Buffy took to her feet, and her cadre of slaying assistants moved with her. The only one she really wanted was Spike, but he was a newbie, too. And the thought of the most experienced master vampire, a vampire who had killed two slayers and nearly a third, being called a "newbie" made her want to laugh out loud with some mad hysteria.

"You an' me, Slayer. We'll show 'em." Spike's voice was suddenly a tickle in her ear, mouth moving and no sound coming out- except to her overly sensitive ears.

"Can you sense anything?" She said in the same airless non-whisper.

"I dunno what it's supposed to feel like." Spike rubbed his neck, and tried to drown out the sounds of four boring old heartbeats and one incredibly sweet, pulsing, slightly faster sound. Slayer's heartbeat. Beating twice as fast as the rest. "Your heart beats near double the others'." Spike fell in closer to her, letting his fingers brush hers. "D'you know why?"

"I'm amazing?"

"True. But you beat twice as fast-", Spike leaned his head to touch her cheek with his lips, "because you carry my heartbeat, as well."

_That is the most romantic, sexiest thing I've ever heard...probably._"My Spike."

"My Slayer!" He growled and all of the sudden they were lip locked, furiously.

"Oh, dear Lord!" Giles howled and tore his glasses free.

"Why is there making out? There's no making out!" Willow yelped. "We're on duty! _You're on duty_!"

"How come _we _can't make out?" Anya stared at them curiously and turned to her boyfriend.

"I don't believe it! Spike?" An entirely new voice marred the situation.

"Harmony." Sighed four voices.

"Who's Harmony?" Spike and Buffy asked, breaking apart.

"Oh, like, my God! Do not do that to me, Buffy. Buffy, why are you touching my Blondie Bear? I mean, he's so_ not _my Blondie Bear now. I mean- where have you been Spike?"

"She knows us." Buffy shrugged.

"What the bloody fuck is a 'blondie bear'?"

"That's _you_, Rambo." Xander hissed.

"Harmony, this might not be the best time to, erm- get reacquainted." Giles suggested.

"Whoa." Buffy held up her hands. "She's not human. She gives me a prickle on my neck, like Spike, but not safe. She's not a nice vampire."

Harmony vamped, but still managed to give Buffy an insipid look. "Why are you acting stupid? And why are you with my ex platinum baby?"

"Oh, bloody hell... no. No, please tell me I didn't." Spike moaned, dragging one hand over his eyes as if he could make her vanish.

"You so did." Xander gloated.

"Xander! Not helping." Willow warned through clenched teeth.

"You- and Spike?" Buffy looked upset, but not more so than Spike.

"I'm sorry." He said thickly. "I didn't-"

"Baby, shh. It's okay." Buffy shook her head. "We should probably just kill her, I guess?" Was there a protocol about staking your lover's former lovers? Ew. That'd be messy if she ever met this Angel guy again.

"But- we went to high school together!" Harmony exclaimed.

"But _we_ didn't." Spike scowled. "An' I'm bettin' I'll be better off without thinkin' I have an ex to run into when I'm settin' up my new life."

"Uh...Bye!" Harmony turned and fled.

"She's really fast!" Buffy stood and pointed.

Giles smacked his head. "Well, so are you, you're the Slayer! Get after her!"

"Dammit." Buffy mumbled, and tore off, full Slayer speed in action. Trailing the blonde female vamp, she turned and noticed that Spike was the only one still with her. "Where's everyone else? I'm supposed to have supervision or something!"

"I'm the only one who can keep up with you!" Spike shouted back, leather coat flying behind him. "This is bloody marvelous! D'you see how fast we are?"

"We weren't this fast before!"

"Yes, we were, we were zapped, we were impaired. This is us at full strength!"

"No, not even. Wait until two more weeks go by!"

"You aren't mad at me about that daft bimbo chit, are you, Poppet?'

"Not unless you want to go back to-"

"Shut your mouth! Don't even think it!" Spike was about to explain even further how he would never look at someone else, how he was the devoted type- but he collided with two brawny figures. For a second, fear swelled in him, until he realized that they weren't soldiers. They were pale and cold, and had the unmistakable vampiric visage. "Shit." He hissed as they toppled to the ground.

"Spike!"

"Look out for yourself!" Spike said fiercely, kicking and punching instinctively. And nothing happened. "Ooohh hoo hoo." He laughed maliciously. "Do we know each other, boys?"

"We've seen you around." Growled the larger one.

"We're not mates?"

"Nope." The smaller one looked confused, and loosened his grip slightly.

"That's good. I'd feel bad if I beat up someone I knew." Spike let himself slide into game face and roared a full throated battle cry.

Buffy shivered pleasurably. So that was the warrior at his best._ Oh, God. Major yummy. _ She turned to the slightly smug looking female vamp, perched on a slight rise, coiling to spring at her. "You dated him? How long?"

"Uh, lemme think. Two months, on and off?" Harmony paused before launching her panther-like form.

"That's not too bad. He's mine, though. And you won't be around anyway." Buffy twirled her stake, not believing how smooth the action felt in her hand.

Several hundred yards away, a panting quartet of humans paused at the blood curdling sound of a demon bellow. "Good Lord. Is that Spike?"

"I think so." Willow looked around nervously. "He sounds like he's in the fight of his life!"

"Good, maybe he'll die. And stay dead." Xander muttered. WIllow glared at him.

"Do you want to deal with a _grieving_ amnesiac Buffy?" She demanded.

"With a broken heart." Anya added pointedly. "Crying, sniffing into a carton of ice cream, pining for her lost love for the rest of her days. We already did that, right?"

"Don't just stand there, let's go help him!" Xander led the charge.

"I need to start jogging more." Giles mopped his forehead with a handkerchief and joined in pursuit.

"Spike?" Buffy called in a strained voice.

"Yes, Luv?"

"Aren't you supposed to be unable to hit things?"

"Must've fried my wiring." Spike laughed gleefully. "D'you see this? I can take on two at once! I'm not even sweatin'!

"Maybe you can't sweat." Buffy pointed out. Harmony pulled her hair and Buffy winced. "Hey! This is not a chick fight, just because we're both girls!"

"You could just stake her." Spike tossed his larger opponent backwards into the door of an ornate mausoleum.

"Are you sure you're okay with that?"

"_I'm _not okay with it!" Harmony protested, kicking Buffy hard in the stomach, making her roll to the side in pain.

"Oi! Leave her alone, you harpy!"

"Spike, what's wrong with you?" Harmony demanded, flinging herself on top of the prone slayer. "I know we broke up, but you don't stop by the crypt, you never came and got your stuff..."

"I have stuff? Where is it?"

"It's all in the back of your car, duh!"

"Where's the soddin' car, Harm?" He paused as he realized he'd called her "Harm", had a vague sense of familiarity.

"Where you left it, behind the crypt, more duh!" Harmony put her hands on her hips. Spike pulled a stake from one of the pockets of his long black coat and dusted the smaller of his attackers, the larger one still hadn't emerged from where he'd been thrown.

Buffy managed to get the upper hand on Harmony and held the stake above her head for a kill.

"Wait!" Spike shouted and ran to her side.

"Do you want me to... Do you still have feelings for her?" Buffy asked in surprise, dropping her guard slightly. She could understand if he did. She had one of those empathetic flashes where she knew it could be hard to hurt someone you'd once loved, even if you didn't love them anymore, even if it was the "right thing" to do.

"No! We broke up, anyway. An' she's not one of the good guys." He shrugged callously. "Where's the crypt, Harmony?"

"Did you hit your head or something?" The dim girl asked.

"Answer him, or I make this hurt." Buffy smiled sweetly, raising her arm again.

"It's right there! The Alpert crypt! The car's on the path behind it, behind the tool shed." Harmony sat up, obviously thinking she'd been given some kind of out as Spike's ex.

"That was all." Spike nodded to Buffy, and she plunged the stake in.

"Sorry about this, it's a sacred duty thing!" Buffy apologized to the dusty air.

Giles and the others appeared, out of breath and applauding. "Well played!" Giles cheered. "Your first kill- in recent memory. Well done!"

"Yay you!" Willow cheered.

"Great job, you rocked Buff- look out!" Xander's tone went from congratulatory to terrified in mid thought. The large vampire Spike had tossed through the door of the crypt had staggered back out, looking enraged and holding his head.

"Oh, I got it!" Spike lunged, staked cleanly, and fell back, looking pleased with himself as the vamp imploded.

Giles, Willow, Anya, and Xander stared, open mouthed.

"You're marvelous, Slayer." Spike pulled Buffy to her feet and kissed her deeply.

"Not as good as you. What was with that _roar_?" She shivered deliciously. "Ooh, my sexy beast." She giggled and nuzzled their foreheads together, laughing softly. Then Spike leaned back in for a kiss, and she reached up for one, and back and forth, both of them looking more and more hungry and desperate. They gave each other a glance that spoke volumes. Blood was pounding, calling to him, as it made her warmer and needier. A good fight might be foreplay for us, Buffy found herself thinking.

Willow finally found her voice and squeaked out, "Spike's not supposed to be able to fight."

"Sod that, I'm a fuckin' _machine_!" He crowed. "That was fun! C'mon, let's find my car, an' then we can cruise for more baddies."

"Erm." Giles cleared his throat. "That- that was impressive. Both of you."

"That was hard work. But kinda cool. It helped to have someone who could keep up with me. I mean- oops. Sorry." Buffy winced apologetically, and Spike just looked on with a smirk. "Do I do things like that a lot- the whole saying dumb things I don't mean to?"

"Not as much as you used to." Willow patted her arm comfortingly.

"And that was a valid point. I used to feel somewhat better knowing we had Angel to call on, at least before- oh dear. Oh, I am sorry." Giles reached for her arm but stopped.

"See? We all do the incredibly dumb verbalizations." Anya said cheerily.

"It's okay, Giles. You were just going to praise Spike, right?" Buffy lifted her eyebrows meaningfully.

"I- er- yes. Spike, you could be quite an asset. Although-"

"Although I am not playin' second-fiddle to this Angel git. I'm my own man, an' I'm different. Aren't I?" Spike started off sounding belligerent, but ended sounding worried. _Don't want to be anything like him. I read about him. He broke her heart. I don't want to do that, I don't even want to be _compared_ to someone who did that._

"You're very different." Willow said with a shudder. I_'m not sure, but I think Angel might've been worse. Well, not Angel, but Angelus. And once you know there's Angelus underneath, it's like seeing a cobra disguised as a cuddly teddy bear. _Willow shuddered again.

Spike hated that they shuddered or looked at him with fear, her and the boy. The countless victims of his past, he didn't know if he'd feel a pang or not, but with these two, especially the girl, it gave him a twinge. "I'm sorry for the threats an' tryin' to kill you lot, okay? I dunno what else I can say. I don't even remember it, an' I'm sorry for it, an' it won't happen again. Is that enough to be going on with?"

"Yes." Buffy forestalled anything else from being said.

Giles nodded impatiently. "If I could just finish what I was saying. Spike, I wasn't going to compare you to Angel- not any further, at this time. I was going to say, it's interesting that you can hurt the vampires. We need to see if this extends to humans, and if it's just while the neuro taser damage is still healing."

"Whatever. I'm helpin' while I can, right, Slayer?" Spike put his arm around her affectionately, and she leaned on his shoulder.

"Very helpful." She looked up at him equally affectionately.

"Helpful, shmelpful, is he gonna bite people, that's the issue!" Xander cried.

"No!" Spike looked annoyed.

"He means can you, not will you." Anya clarified.

"No, I meant it both ways." Xander muttered.

"Well, step up if you'd like, boy." Spike slid into game face. "One way to find out."

"You're wasting your time. He already bit Buffy, so yeah, he can and he will, in the right circumstances." Anya shrugged.

"But that didn't hurt." Spike reassured hastily. _It was the best thing I've felt in my life, but I wouldn't have done it if I thought it would hut her._

"Does the chip get the difference?" Buffy asked. "Between hurting, wanting to hurt, and doing something that looks painful but feels_ incredible_?" She blushed as she realized she'd made an expression of unbridled bliss when talking about being bitten. Spike gave her a grateful squeeze.

"We don't know anything about the chip. But now we do have someone who might be able to help us." Giles gave Willow a significant look.

"I'll contact Riley. Oh, and Buffy, I have some assignments for you, I'd been meaning to get them to you, they got dropped off at the dorm's front desk."

"Oh. Goody. Stuff I don't remember- for a grade." Buffy sighed.

"C'mon, Slayer, we'll get it taken care of. First, let's go find my car an' see what the blonde trollop lookin' girl packed in it. Then we can kill some things, an' then we can _go home_." He twirled his tongue back behind his teeth in a sinful smile.

"Do you remember how to drive?" Buffy asked, taking his arm and allowing him to lead her in the direction of the small winding path looping the cemetery.

"Sure. I think." Spike rubbed his chin. "We'll find out, won't we?"

"I'm sure you'll know."

"If not, you drive, right, Poppet?"

"Hmm. I don't think so. I don't remember driving. We can try."

Walking a few feet behind the smitten couple, Xander muttered, "Will- Buffy didn't learn to drive over the summer, did she?"

"Not any more than she did over the last year of high school." Willow gnawed on a fingernail.

"This has bad news written all over it." Anya sighed. "At least Spike can't die. Unless they hit a phone pole and cause the car to become engulfed in flames if it ruptures parts of the internal combustion engine." All of them considered this and began walking quickly.

"Spike! Where did you learn to drive? Do you know if it was this country?" Giles sped up and caught the pair.

"Hm? I'm not sure, am I, Watcher?"

"Which side of the road should you drive on?"

"Giles, he's watched you drive for days. He knows how to do that." Buffy said confidently.

"Which pedal is the gas, left or right?"

"The right."

"What's a turn signal?"

"The signal you use to show you want to turn?" Spike asked, looking at Giles worriedly. "Y'know, mate, I dunno if I want you drivin' us about anymore if you're not sure of these things."

"Spike!"

"Giles? When you yell, all the veins in your forehead pop out." Buffy mused.

"BUFFY!"

"See? Like that."

Giles refused to let Spike drive with Buffy until he was sure he could drive well- at least not injuriously. Spike made a few haphazard circuits, and Giles reluctantly agreed to let Spike drive to the next cemetery, all of them piling into the ancient car which was littered with cigarette butts, old whiskey bottles, and newspapers. Anya had to sit on Xander's lap for all of them to fit, but they did.

"This cemetery is farthest from campus, probably the least likely to be raided by the commandos." Giles said as they parked along the darkened street. "More likely to have vampire activity that isn't stemmed."

"I do all these cemeteries, but I walk everywhere? Thank God I have slayer energy. This isn't a huge town, but it's a lot of places to cover."

"You don't hit the same places every night. We have- we had- a routine. We'll get one again. In the meantime, focus on locating vampires or demons with your sensing abilities."

"Okay..." Buffy eased out of the old car, wincing as she knocked an empty bottle of whiskey onto the pavement and it shattered.

"Next, we'll work on stealth." Giles sighed.

"He-ere vampy, vampy, vampy!" Spike crooned, also getting out of his car.

"He was never stealthy to begin with, I don't know what you're going to do about that." Willow shook her head. "He's a barge in and get messy type."

"Spike! Honey,_ prowl._" Buffy encouraged.

"Well, then you stop lookin' so worried about the damn broken bottle an' get your mind back on being super sensory girl." He hissed, equally encouragingly.

"Maybe they'll kind of train each other for you?" Anya said hopefully.

"Perhaps." Giles mused, and hung back.

"Aren't we going to go stick close to her?" Xander urged as the pair got farther and farther away, into the heart of the dark, poorly lit graveyard. "Any minute he could do a Jekyll and Hyde and turn on Buffy." He hissed angrily.

"I already turn her on!" Spike snarked, calling softly over his shoulder.

"Damn vampire hearing." Xander whispered.

"We'll walk and observe this time." Giles herded them forward. "Everyone needs a weapon out and a cross up. I don't like the feel of this place."

It turned out Giles had a good reason to feel uneasy. The place was teeming with activity, scattered though it was. There were several newly disturbed graves, and a small group of vampires had chosen a mausoleum as the sight for their nest, and were in the process of bringing in two unconscious "dinners". Fortunately, everything didn't happen at once.

"Shouldn't we go help?" Willow asked worriedly, watching Buffy and Spike take on the foursome who were protecting their human meals.

"Yes. But I don't want to get between them and their prey, make Buffy have to fight them off as well as protect us. As soon as they draw them out a bit, we're going to go get those people. Xander, Anya, on the next corner there's a pay phone. Ring for an ambulance, in case it isn't too late."

"On it, Boss Man." Xander saluted and ran, Anya in tow.

"We're the rescuers?" Willow looked faint.

"I'd have sent you with Anya but, call me old-fashioned, I thought Xander and I might be slightly better at providing some protection for each of you. From the more human elements of town, at the least."

"It's okay. I'm just surprised I'm on rescue duty."

"You've rescued people before." Giles grinned. "Now, there's a break! Move!"

Spike and Buffy were fighting, looking grim, maybe moving somewhat sloppily, but they were holding their own. Giles was admiring the way they worked together, seemingly not knowing they _were_ "working together". They each had a pair of assailants, and seemed solely focused on them. _Good, they haven't let their hearts get in the way too much, they don't waste too much time monitoring the other._ But they kept out of each others' ways, kept things moving, and when one vampire went down, they smoothly closed ranks, spreading the man power to make it a two on three battle instead of leaving someone with a two on one event.

"I think she's alive." Willow pulled off the sweater she was wearing and pressed the neck wound to staunch the blood. The girl's eyes fluttered open for a moment and Willow beamed. "Yup! Alive!"

"He'll be alright as well. Men have thicker muscles in the necks, less damage sometimes. He'll come 'round." Giles was applying his handkerchief to his own rescued victim.

"One on one, Slayer!" Spike cheered themselves as they were down to the last two.

"Two on one!" One vampire, tall and lank haired, with angry orange-hued eyes slammed Buffy hard across he throat with his joined fists. She staggered, gasped, and fell, eyes closing.

"BUFFY!" Giles and Willow screamed, while they heard an answering bellow of despair,

"Poppet! _Slayer_!" Spike made that full-throated roar that had startled everyone earlier, and lunged. He didn't even know he could do what he did- but he twisted the head of one attacking vampire from his shoulders. "You unholy bastard!" He turned on the remaining one, hands outstretched.

"You're a vamp, too, dude. No cracks about the unholy-" His head left his shoulders before he was able to finish the statement. Spike slid across the damp grass to Buffy and cradled her in his arms.

"The ambulance is on its way!" Anya and Xander charged in, panting slightly. "Buffy!" Anya pointed.

"What'd he do?" Xander demanded.

"Nothing, shut up!" Willow looked worried. "Spike, it's okay, Buffy has super speedy healing. She'll be fine."

"Luv? Luv, look at me. Open your eyes, Poppet." Spike shook her. "Hey, Slayer! Open your eyes, Slayer." His whole frame went limp in relief when she opened her eyes at last. "There's my girl." He smiled.

"I'm okay." Buffy rasped. "I- I just didn't get up fast enough. I was trying..."

"This is too much, too soon. We should have stopped at one cemetery." Giles berated himself.

"No fuss." Buffy said firmly, if softly. "Do we pack water bottles? We should." Her hand went to her throat.

"C'mon, let's get you home." Spike tossed his keys to Xander.

"Huh?"

"You drive. I'm with her." Spike picked Buffy up, and slid his arm under hers.

"I'm fine." She stumbled to her feet, trying to stand on her own.

"You got the air knocked out of you and you got a bruise like a baseball on your throat. I know you can't be breathin' right." Spike ignored her protests and supported her.

"We have to wait for the ambulance." Anya reminded him.

"I'm just gonna get her to the car, to sit." Spike called.

"Spike, I'm the Slayer. No one fusses over me."

"You're the Slayer, I'm the Slayer of Slayers. If there's one bloke in the whole world who gets a free pass, isn't it me?"

"No." She pouted stubbornly, sweetly moved inside.

"What about your future husband, does he get the right?"

"Wow. Husband."

"Wife."

"Wow." Buffy sagged, partly in realization of the fact that she was engaged, and partly because she felt like she was straining air into her lungs through a mouthful of cotton. She felt lightheaded. Spike took her weak kneed reaction seriously, and swooped her up in his arms, resting her on the hood of the car.

"Poor Lamb. Here, Spike'll kiss it better." He smiled and pressed soft kisses above her bruising, just under her chin.

"I guess I have to let you. Husband guy."

"Bloody right." He licked all around it, tasting the tangy adrenaline rush in her blood through her sweat as it lay lightly on her neck. "We'll put some ice on it, soon as we get home."

"Hey, hey, fang boy, off the throat." Xander came behind them as the welcome sound of sirens was finally heard.

"Oh, will you give it a rest?" Spike demanded in exasperation. "She's not well, I'm easin' the pain. Wouldn't you do this with your bird?"

"Yeah, Xander." Buffy smiled and her eyes twinkled. "I bet you would."

Xander blushed, happy in a way because Buffy was joking around with him. Like her old self. But the old Buffster wouldn't be playing hickey exchange with Spike, and she probably wouldn't have gotten knocked out, either._ On the other hand, Buffy could have been hit by a bullet, not just a taser, and she could be lying dead somewhere, maybe in that cave, unfound, or she could be buried someplace. And her memory is coming back. Someday, we'll be the Scoobies again. I guess, if I have to take Spike to keep Buffy, I'll take the cloroxified jerk. _"Well, no mauling the injured, okay? First rule of being a Scooby. No, the _first _rule is don't hurt humans. The _second _rule is no mauling the injured."

"What's the third, Xander?" Buffy asked, again with a teasing smile that made her brunette friend start to feel like the world might stop spinning off its axis and return to normal sometime soon.

"Bring jelly doughnuts to research sessions. There's a whole list. Um. Oh, don't lick your fingers, and then turn the pages, because Giles hates that. Don't ever say 'things can't get any worse', because y'know, it's like a big cosmic 'nyah, nyah, nyah you can't get me', so of course..."

"Much worse?" Spike grinned, and chuckled. The boy might be annoying, but he had a bit of humor.

"_So_ much worse. Oh, most important. Don't give up on your friends, even if they, I don't know- get possessed by the spirit of a hyena and eat the school mascot, or poison you for some ritual, or make you fall in love with your mortal enemy, or date weird, not so squeaky clean people. Yeah. Scoobs never give up on each other."

"Admirable. I love loyalty." Spike nuzzled Buffy's cheek, but kept his eyes on Xander's face. He didn't look happy, but he didn't look openly hostile.

"I- I'm gonna go make sure everyone got into the ambulance okay." Xander abruptly walked off.

"Let's get you into the back. Those hospital folk shouldn't mess around with blood loss like that. We'll be ready to go in a mo'." Spike opened the car door, and slid in, pulling Buffy across his lap.

"We were good." Buffy smiled at him tiredly. "That's hard work. And- and it's sad. I killed, like, five people tonight."

"Not people, Pet."

"Yes, people. People I knew, even. I kill someone's family every day. How do I live like that?" She looked at him in puzzlement. "I mean- the books say I'm great at it. But vampires- I killed someone I went to high school with, just because she got bitten. Maybe I didn't save her in time from another vampire, and now I killed her, and wasn't she just a victim herself?"

"I dunno, Slayer. It's tough." Spike patted his pockets absently, fumbling for a cigarette that he knew didn't exist, and oddly enough, that he hadn't been craving much- not before that last kill anyway. "You gotta think about it like- like you're savin' someone from bein' a victim. Must not seem like they're human anymore." Spike soothed. "Must be horrible, to see someone you love claimed by somethin' evil, turnin' them into what they aren't. You save them from livin' like that, overrun by the dark. You save them from bein' murderers. It's a shitty way to save the world, but I guess there aren't too many options."

"I didn't save_ you_ like that."

"But I still know how to love. Love can save a man. But from what I read, I'm part of an unusual group, Pet, was never a proper vamp. Always lived like a human, with a family of sorts."

"You still became a murderer."

"An' I still wish I hadn't." Spike said very softly, speaking low in her ear. "Maybe it would have been better to put me out of my misery. Maybe that's why I went after Slayers, lookin' to get it ended by someone I thought could beat me. Because I don't feel too bad about anything the books say I did- and that makes me feel pretty monstrous, let me tell you. That I don't much care. I feel empty inside my heart, like I do in my mind. So maybe there_ is_ only one way to save us from ourselves, hm, Slayer?"

"But you still loved someone. And now you love me. Love means there's hope for change. And as for empty- well- don't I fill you up inside?" She murmured pleadingly.

"Yes, Pet, an' that was where I was headin'. There's a reason I didn't get taken out of this game in the last century and a half. I had to find you first."

"You found me. I found you. We'll keep the emptiness from coming back." Buffy twisted her head back to kiss him, even though her reduced ability to draw breath made the kisses short and gasping, rapid fire.

The kisses were short, but they were like a fire on his skin. He didn't want the cigarette to take the edge off, he wanted her.

Buffy squirmed, grinding her hips to his lap. She felt oddly hot and achey inside. She knew she should feel only tired and sore, going at it full tilt after a week of not doing anything much, and then getting her throat slammed into. Not a fun happy-making activity.

"Slayer..." His voice was threat, warning her not to enflame him.

"Spike..." Her voice was a threat, warning him not to try and stop it.

"Good God Almighty! Can't I even leave you alone for five minutes?" Xander slid into the driver's seat with a thud, and the couple regretfully eased their attentions. Willow and Anya squeezed into the back and Giles sat up front, wrinkling his nose at the overpowering smell of stale smoke and old alcohol.

"Did those- people- get taken care of?" Buffy asked in short bursts, rubbing her throat.

"On their way to SunnyD Memorial." Willow smiled. "You guys did great. We'll get you home and all patched up." She bounced excitedly, a puppy dog eagerness and happiness exuding from her. The bad guys were killed, the people were saved, she'd never really liked Harmony when she was human, much less since she'd tried to bite her as a vamp, and now she was dusty- all of the good.

"Where are we heading, Jeeves?" Xander put the car in drive and promptly backed it into a trash bin.

"Oh for heaven's sake..." Giles mumbled as Spike cursed softly.

"I can't see! This thing is all blacked out. You'd need night vision goggles!" Xander protested.

"Or night vision itself. I'll drive. But Buffy sits with me." Spike sighed and kicked the door open. After some quick rearranging, the party was back in the car and heading towards Giles' house. Spike had to be given directions, but eventually got them all there in one piece.

Once there, the blonde couple wanted to head quickly back out, to Buffy's house, but the others wanted to rehash the night's events and begin planning routine patrols and discuss the Initiative and the consequences the neuro tasers had on chipped demons.

Spike drank blood and watched them all talking, not participating. Buffy lay against his chest, ice on her throat, a large glass of ice water in her hand, and made noncommittal replies.

"I know you're both tired and not feeling the best." Giles smiled at the languid pair. "But we at least need to figure out the housing situation after tomorrow. Buffy, you cannot go back to the dorms, you've been granted medical leave and you being seen on campus isn't allowable. I suppose we can always explain to Joyce... oh bloody hell. She _will _kill me. She will, undoubtably kill me." Giles groaned. "She still blames me for- well- almost everything bad that's ever happened here in the last three years." He was forced to smile as Anya attempted to give him a comforting pat on the back, which felt more like being slapped.

"I don't know if I want to stay there, Giles. I mean- this sounds so awful, because she's my mother, but she's a complete stranger. I'd feel better staying with one of you, or even alone, rather than with her. This will make her so sad, won't it? I mean, _I'm_ so sad because I can't remember her, but she'll be heartbroken because her only little girl has no clue who she is." Buffy bit her lip suddenly to stop the pain inside from bubbling over.

Willow sniffled and Xander patted her arm. Spike stroked Buffy's hair comfortingly.

"Well, Poppet, you won't be on your own with her. All your mates will come round, an' of course, I'll be there." Spike tried to console her.

"Yeah, that's true." Buffy plastered on a braver expression.

"No, it isn't!" Willow cried. "Buffy, your mom didn't even know you were the slayer for the first couple years. She doesn't know that you were engaged under a spell, or that Spike's chipped- no, that doesn't even matter now- she will freak if you announce you're engaged!"

"Well, she'll freak anyway. Buffy has no memory of her, has been attacked by a secret military force and has been having sex with a vampire all week. The engagement will be just one more thing." Anya's optimism was strangely non-infectious.

"She's gonna be more freaked out the longer I leave it, right? About Spike, not about losing my memory. Although that can't be good, either." Buffy spoke carefully, her throat already feeling better, now just like a case of swollen glands more than the equivalent of a horse's hoof to the neck. "We're going to have to wait until I can at least remember my mom to get married, Spike."

"I know, Luv. Want your mum's blessin', want her to think of me as a part of the family, as I'm gonna have a long wait until I can remember my own mother." Spike spoke bitterly.

"Well this wedding isn't going to happen then." Xander said cheerfully, before he thought better of it.

"Yes it will." Buffy's eyes flashed, and she leaned forward, hitching herself up on Spike's lap, and trying to ignore the momentary twinge of pleasure it caused. She also tried to ignore the sound of Spike's low snarl, like an annoyed tiger half-awake. "Whether she consents or not, I'm eighteen, almost nineteen, and I- I have a short life. I'm going to be happy while I can." She looked at her friends defiantly. "Giles- from what I remember about that night, I asked you to give me away. Seeing as you've been in my life every day for the last three years, and my dad is just a name on a chart, and a footnote about standing me up on the night of my eighteenth birthday- would you still like to do it?" Spike sat up at her request, watching Giles.

Giles stared deep into Spike's eyes, not Buffy's. He could refuse her very little if it made her happy, if it was some consolation for the harsh life she'd endured instead of a carefree childhood. But Spike, he could refuse him anything. He stared at the hard blue eyes and watched them change. No longer brittle, they seemed hopeful- scared? Scared that the woman he loves will have no support from anyone but him. Scared that he'll be all she has, and though he might be selfish, he wants better than that for her. And dear Lord, Spike being all Buffy had was a horrifying thought for him as well.

"Of course I will. It will be an honor to give you away." He said softly, seriously. Spike's eyes flooded with gratitude which he quickly masked by lowering his lids to half mast, and Buffy looked like the blushing bride she believed herself to be. The air in the room was tense, and Giles broke the stuffiness. "Your choice of grooms is rather deplorable, but I'm afraid I never could change your mind, you stubborn girl."

"Thank you!" Buffy cried, then swallowed. "Ow."

"Thanks, Watcher." Spike nodded stiffly. "So- we'll talk to Joyce."

"You better have a backup plan." Anya said with a grim expression. "I've seen a lot of angry women in my time, and right under scorned lovers and wives is pissed off mothers."

"You're both welcome to stay here." Giles offered.

"It'd be great if you could use the dorm. I could go home to my parents' for a few weeks and you could stay there until finals were done... no, not safe, I know." Willow twiddled her fingers as she tried to think.

"Doubt that crypt would be okay." Spike grumbled. "But it'd be a short commute, wouldn't it, Slayer?"

"Mm, roll out of bed, heat up some blood, scramble some eggs, do the staking and roll back into bed." Buffy nuzzled her fiancé amorously.

"I like that. 'Specially the beginning and the end bits." Spike roped his fingers in her hair, kissing her deeply. The pull for a cigarette went away immediately. Ever since that last fight, smelling her adrenaline rushing from her- it was like a call. And as he tasted her again, he understood. The adrenaline was still pouring off of her. _She's still in fight or flight mode. _

Buffy knew she was acting like she had under the influence of the spell- only worse. Or better, depending how you looked at it. And she knew why. Under the spell, they'd been in love, but kissing was all they'd done. Now they'd done more, and she knew what she wanted. Besides, she'd been in the peak of a battle and it had gotten interrupted. She was tired, but curiously energetic. "Mmmm." She heard herself moan openly and didn't even have time to blush. _I have major unfinished business. The slayer was supposed to put one more vamp on his back tonight, and it didn't happen...yet._

"We have to go." Spike and Buffy spoke simultaneously.

"But-" Willow protested.

"Your house?" Giles was appalled by the amount of open lust he'd just seen, but he needed to address what the plan for tomorrow was.

"We'll take you up on you generous offer unless we can work something out with Slayer's mum." Spike made a command decision. It was a testament to either how much Buffy loved and trusted him, or how horny she was, that she merely nodded, and tugged his hand.

"Well- er- right. I'll get the blood I picked up at the butcher's today, and I'll drive you home." Giles got to his feet and headed to the kitchen.

"No need. I've got wheels." Spike slid his duster on and jangled the keys in his pocket.

"But you don't know the way." Giles called from the interior of the fridge, piling four or five pint bags of crimson fluid into a paper bag.

"Give him a map." Buffy said, an edge of franticness in her tone.

Giles held out the bag as he returned."It's very easy, you just turn left at the stop sign, then go three blocks-"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, if you don't let the two of them be alone together soon, they're going to burst, and it won't be pretty. Well- some of _you_ wouldn't like it anyway." Anya pulled Xander up from the couch. " Come on, you can follow us. Xander lives a couple blocks up from you, Buffy."

"I knew I liked you, Demon Girl." Spike sighed gratefully. "Night all!"

"Wait!" Willow sprang up. "What time is your mom coming home, Buffy?"

"She didn't say. She said a long weekend away, so Tuesday is all I've got."

"You'd better be over early then, in case she decides to try to beat morning rush hour." Giles went to the door and paused. "Come here." He said resignedly, motioning to Spike and Buffy. Everyone came, all preparing to leave. "This is where the spare key is." He showed Spike and Buffy the outdoor hiding place with a sigh. "Use it to let yourselves in if I don't answer, or you need to come back unexpectedly. Try to leave the house before daylight, certainly."

"I 'ppreciate the vote of confidence, Giles." Spike smiled, watching him hide the key again.

"Me, too. It's really sweet. And nice. And trusting." Buffy was fairly jittering alongside of Spike. "Can we go now? I need to get to bed, I'm- tired." She concluded completely unbelievably.

"Oh, yeah._ Real_ tired." Xander scoffed.

"I'm _tired_, too." Anya said, slipping her fingers through his. Xander blushed and turned to face Giles.

"Another great day, G-Man. See you after work tomorrow." He saluted. "Willow, want a lift?"

"No, the campus is out of your way if you're taking Buffy home."

"You can't walk by yourself, Will." Buffy took her hand.

Willow beamed. It was one of the few times Buffy had reached for her, and the only time, she thought, that Buffy'd called her by her nickname. "N-no, I guess not."

"Would you be up for another attempt at attacking those last two levels of encryption?" Giles offered. Willow looked at him gratefully. As the only two who currently were unattached, either because of a casual girlfriend flying back and forth from London every few months, or because of the love of your life being out on a mission of self-discovery, they both knew what it was like to feel like the odd man out.

"Gimme a cup of coffee and I'm hacker gal." She grinned.

"No, Willow, no caffeine." Xander said, as if scolding a bad puppy.

"It makes her hyper." Buffy told Spike.

The sextet froze on the steps, halfway in and out of Giles' apartment. "Did I- did I just know something about you? I knew something about you! I got something right all on my own!" Buffy squealed.

"Your accelerated Slayer 'll be better in no time." Giles beamed and Willow launched herself down from the apartment to tackle Buffy in a hug. She was so caught up she hugged Spike as well.

"Your lips to God's ears, mate." Spike patted Buffy on the back and tried not to flinch when the redhead touched him. He wasn't used to physical affection he supposed and he certainly wasn't used to receiving it from people who reminded him he was hungry when they got too close.

In a few moments, the group had split into pairs, Xander and Anya leading Spike and Buffy to her home, and Willow and Giles back to the Initiative's closely guarded, heavily encrypted webfiles.

Buffy was shamelessly crawling over and caressing Spike as he drove, and he used every second he could look away to return the attentions, although to Buffy he seemed distracted from_ her _distractions. "Am I not hitting all the good spots? Maybe you need to show me again..." She asked in a seductive tone, voice made unusually husky from her slightly swollen vocal cords.

"No, Slayer, you're bloody incredible, an' hittin' every spot I got. I'm jus' havin' a melancholy moment. It's a treat gettin' to watch you remember. You light up, you're so happy. You had a bleedin' tragic three years, from what I read, but these folks made it bearable. You're gonna get happy memories back, an' I want that for you. I want that for you, so bloody much." He hit the steering will in his emphasis.

"Is there a 'but'?" Buffy asked gently.

"No. There's jus' a little worry. Selfish really. I wonder what kind of memories_ I'll _get back? From the sounds of it- none that won't involve some horrible act, at least not for a long, long time. An' now that I do want to let the man rule, an' the monster serve, I jus' realized I've got a lot of unpleasant thoughts comin' to me. S'pose I deserve it." He sounded far away, but forced himself back with a wide smile, for her. "Oh well, not much to be done about it."

"There is something we can do." Buffy said softly, hand caressing his arm, sliding slowly, kneading the well worn black leather. "We'll make every day filled with new thoughts, happy memories, good moments. It won't balance the scales but-"

"Yes, it will. It will more'n balance, Poppet. Every minute with you is worth an hour without you, at the least." They pulled slowly into the driveway of their temporary dwelling. "Thank you, Luv. Just made me realize, I may not have a happy past to dwell on, but I'm about to have the best future a bloke could ask for."

Once they came inside the house through the garage, they only stopped to make sure the front door was locked and the blood was in the fridge before racing upstairs.

"I wanted you the whole soddin' time we were sittin' in Giles' flat." Spike roughly tore her shirt over her head, splitting a seam.

"I wanted you since the car, before we got to his flat." Buffy countered, hands sliding up his cool, muscled back.

"Your blood is shoutin' to me. Sayin' you aren't satisfied. I never leave a lover unsatisfied." Spike hissed, tongue dancing over her recently punctured neck.

"I don't know what happened, I was feeling sort of tired..." Buffy tilted her throat into his kisses, fingers unlatching his belt as she pushed her sneakers free. "And then that big vamp bully smacked me in the throat just when I was starting to get ramped up to teach him not to mess with us..."

"An' you were ready for a brawl that didn't happen. Poor Slayer." He yanked her bra free, up and over her head, not unhooking it. She gasped as her round handfuls fell with a judder and bounce. "Sorry, Luv." He whispered. "Not exactly gentle, sorry." He palmed her smooth globes softly, fighting down all of his urges to give her that brawl she was looking for. Not a violent exchange of course, merely- heated.

"It's okay. So- so you think I'm just looking for a fight?"

"I think you're lookin' for someone big an' bad to put down." He met her eyes. "D'you still want a story, Slayer, from a past that didn't happen?"

"Mm, God, yes. Tell it to me, make it real later." She fought down his zipper and he tugged her free, falling and rolling to the bed, stained and bruised from a few hours of patrolling, but not seeming to notice. Correction, Buffy thought, not seeming to _mind._ He was perfect like this, perfect as the sweet, gentle man who had helped her in the first days after the attack, perfect as the powerful fighter she'd seen in action tonight.

"Slayer an' Spike didn't have a gang- exactly. But they did fight. An' one night- they were fightin' each other." Spike pressed her down to the bed, and found himself suddenly reversed, looking up into curious, forceful green eyes. "Yeah, Slayer, like that..."

"So they fought?"

"Outside the club. The Brass."

"Bronze."

"Bugger the name." Spike coursed his hands roughly over her back, and to her hips, jerking her forward. He wanted to slam her down, impale her on him, and at the same time his mind screamed to wait, do things right. "She was a hellcat."

"He was a sexy beast. With that growl. A wild cat growl that rips straight through you."

"Hits you in the good spots, Slayer?" He smirked, tongue licking his lips and flicking, as if indicating what good spots he could find with his mouth.

"Like all the blood pours down, down, down." She rubbed his shaft against her wetness, aiming the tip to her nub, soaking them in her juices.

"You _did_ like it." Spike snarled, eyes widening in pleasure. She was like him. In the good ways. The action made her hot- at least the action needed to be completed, he could understand that.

"I loved it. I feel... like the Slayer part of me has someone to play with." She grinned down at him. "Every tough girl needs her tough guy." She suddenly gave a very un-tough giggle, and he smiled up at her.

"And every Poppet needs her gentle lover. I can give you that, Slayer. I can be both." He leaned up, she leaned down, and they kissed, gentle at first, growing bolder, until her scent and taste overwhelmed him and he thrust up. Perfect match, he thought in a spiral of pleasure, for Buffy was just slamming her hips down.

"Tell- me- about this fight." Buffy cried, drawing shallow breaths as she adjusted to being suddenly full, having something to take out her frustration on. Agonized muscles squeezed down and fingers dug into his chiseled torso.

"He- couldn't beat her. She was too good. An' she couldn't beat him." Spike grunted and took out some of his own pent up need, grinding up inside her, watching her face twist in pleasure. He cupped her cheek, slid to her neck, and pulled her down for a long searing kiss.

"She couldn't?" Buffy asked when she pulled back for some air.

"She couldn't kill him, anyway." Spike nodded. "An' he couldn't get her taken out, either. An' do you know how crazy it made 'em? Not bein' able to finish this fight, this damn dance they'd been at for the whole soddin' night?"

"I bet- they did something about it. Maybe something bad. Just to relieve the tension. Because she has to be a good girl during the day, go to high school, go to college, and save the world..." Buffy whimpered and bucked down on him in frustration.

"Not workin' is it? You can dish it out, but you still love to take it- if it's with the right one." Spike quirked an eyebrow and jerked his head to the bed beside him. With a little muted groan, she rolled off and let him claim her body with his, nice and hard.

"Slayer can't concentrate with that angry wave of kill or be killed dancin' behind her eyes." Spike resumed the story, resting on her for a minute, prolonging the moment when he'd let them both go free.

"Spike..." This was torture, having him in her, knowing he could drive her over the edge- but he stayed still.

"I just want to show you what happened next." His voice was husky and soft in her ear. "He asked for a truce, 'cause apparently they'd had one before an' it worked bloody well- saved the world an' that. He said,_ I'll take you hard as you want, if you take me hard as I want, an' I'll keep doin' it until you're all soft, an' sweet, relaxed in my arms._"

"She would've taken him up on it, just to prove that he couldn't ever make her soft and sweet for him."

"Fair enough. How about 'until you're too tired to kill anything', will that help?" He teased.

"She probably would have gone for that. He was impressive in a fight. Wonder what moves he's got in the bedroom?"

"Let me show you what he did." Spike lifted her hips slightly, fingers around her waist, and pulled her down on to him as he leaned back. Once joined, his hands slammed to the mattress, either side of her shoulders, and he went at her, savagely inside, feeling her grip and thrust back just as hard. "She's beautiful, his Slayer." Spike managed to say. _Bloody hell, I don't need to breathe. Why can't I talk when I make love to her like this?_

"He's handsome, her warrior."

"Warrior." He closed his eyes and sighed. _That's why I can't speak. My stupid heart an' brain meet in the middle an' clog my throat. An' all I can do is feel. Feel her givin' everything she has to me..._

_He takes everything I have to give and gives it right back. So hard, but it doesn't hurt me. And I know no one ever took me like this. And I don't ever want anyone else to. _"Show me." She whispered. "Show all of you to me." She traced his face desperately.

"I can love you just as hard, just as fast as he can." Spike shook his head.

"Fine." Buffy sat up and bit down hard on his neck. "I love you. I was marking you. You're my Spike."

He bit her back, with blunt human teeth, and then his fangs slid down and in. "I love you, too. Marked you. You're my Slayer."

Spike redoubled his efforts, the blood in his mouth giving him a jolt of unusual speed and endurance, even for him. "So, this battle. Everyone walks away satisfied."

"Very." She closed her eyes and bowed her head, chin to her chest, bearing down. "Spike!"

"Ohhh fuckin' bloody hell, Christ, Slayer!" Spike's eyes popped then closed when she gripped him hard and writhed on him, riding him from underneath. He came with her, relieved to feel the rushing scent of her blood replaced with a slower, sweeter cadence. Satisfaction.

"She was wrong." Buffy panted in his ear as he collapsed on top of her.

"Why? About what?" He looked up, drifty eyed.

"She did relax, and get all sweet in his arms."

"She's everything he ever wanted, that girl." Spike admitted softly.

"He's everything she didn't even know she needed." Buffy agreed.

_To be continued..._


	10. Chapter 10

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Notes: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Dedicated to Lithium Reaper, Hannah the Bloody, DLillith21, GoodfortheSoul, McPastey, ginar369, fortunefavors, Lil-Leti, Fortunefavors, and Seapea_

_A somewhat disjointed chapter, lots happening._

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part X

"Slayer. Wake up, beautiful girl." Spike hissed in her ear.

"No. Sleepy." She pouted and pulled herself closer to him. "Mmm. Spike pillow."

"Don't... Poppet, you're all soft and warm." Spike groaned and tried to find inner strength. Which ninety percent of his body was telling to bugger off.

"I'm all soft and warm because I love you." She pouted and buried her head in his shoulder.

"You're- we have to go." He kissed the top of her head, and hugged her back. It was still dark but they needed to get out before Joyce came home, and they didn't know when that would be. With a reluctant sigh he turned on the bedside lamp, and let out a little noise of surprise. "Poppet..."

"What?" Buffy snuggled to him more insistently.

"You an' I went a little hard last night." He began cautiously.

"It was soo good." Buffy finally opened her eyes, smiling impishly.

"You've got bruises." He whispered, feeling oddly proud and apologetic at the same time. "Do you hurt?"

"Nope. Probably be all gone soon." She followed his eyes and noticed some light bruising on the sides of her hips, from where he'd held her. She looked at him. "You look worse." She bit her lip and giggled. "All scratched." She traced a hand down his shoulder.

"But vampires love it like that. Like to be marked. Well- I do. Proud to be loved. At least, that's why I like it." He sounded slightly shy at his admission.

"Slayers like it that way, too. At least I do." She mirrored his words. "And last night was all Slayer." She sat up enough to bring him back down to her. "It's still dark. Is there time for your soft, sweet girl to make love to her gentle man?"

"Your mum is comin' home, Luv. This room has to get put back an' these sheets need a wash, an-" Her eyes were getting wider and wider and her pouting lip protruding more and more with each word he spoke. "Sod it. There's always time for my Sweetheart." He flicked off the lamp and rolled on top of her with a groan.

"Willow. Willow!" Giles shook the sleeping teenager gently.

"I turned it in!" Willow blurted and sat up. "Oh. Giles." She looked around and a puzzled frown took over her face. "Why am I in your house?"

"Because you fell asleep on the computer." He reminded her. "Tea?"

"Oh, goody." Willow sat up stiffly. "Owie. Crick in neck."

"I'm sorry. I'm going to have get a more comfortable sofa. Maybe a pull out." Giles sighed. "As I may be playing host to the future Mr. and Mrs. Bloody."

"We should call Angel!" Willow suddenly exclaimed.

"What? Why would we do that?" Giles could think of a hundred different reactions Angel might have to learning Buffy was engaged to Spike, and none of them were good and a majority included massacres. Soul or not, Angel was still capable of violence.

"He's known Spike for years! He knew him right after he was turned, I bet he knows if he had family and I bet he knows his last name." Willow looked up at Giles worriedly. "Could we fib a little? And just say we want to know to fill in the gaps in the Chronicles? I really don't want Buffy to be Mrs. Buffy Bloody."

"He'll ask too many questions about why we can't ask Spike himself." Giles shook his head. "It's a good plan, for later. For right now, I'm more worried about you getting to your dorm and contacting Riley."

"I emailed his campus account last night. I told him to call me at this number after my last class, okay? I figured I'd come back and help Buffy cheat on all her assignments. For once, I don't feel guilty." Willow lifted her chin defiantly. "Well, not much." She wriggled uncomfortably.

"Don't feel guilty. You're saving her academic career, and it isn't her fault she was attacked." Giles patted her arm, and then looked away, out across the courtyard. "No, let's not focus on that- I think we might need to be worried about why Buffy and Spike aren't here. It's nearly daylight."

"I think being engaged has made me irresponsible." Buffy panted as she slid into the car, well after daylight. "Do you think she'll notice we used all the eggs?"

"I hope not." Spike reversed the car out of the drive and Buffy looked worriedly around, trying to peer through black paint smeared windows. "You can't see anything, Luv, jus' stay calm, I'll be the lookout."

"I hope we put everything back right in the bedroom. The shower! She'll notice the shower's damp!"

"Slayer, she might not even be home until late tonight. If she notices the shower's wet, she'll probably call you or the old man, as you have keys to the place an' he's close to you, an' you'll tell her you- you got into some brawl with a demon near your house an' had to come in to get cleaned up."

"I don't like lying to her. Even though I don't feel like I_ know_ her, and I lied to her for two solid years about my 'night job', I don't want to have to lie to her anymore." Buffy suddenly looked utterly miserable. "I lied all the time to everyone- and I guess I always will have to. Secret identity gal." Buffy set her jaw and looked into the black obscured horizon. "But I don't want to lie to _her_."

"I understand, Luv. An' I agree, it's got to be done, but no lyin' to your mum- unless it's to keep her safe. No lyin' to me, either." He added softly.

"No. You're the only one I feel like I could be really honest with anyway." Buffy said seriously.

"It's mutual, Poppet." Spike took her hand across the wheel. "About your mum, tellin' her you needed to come in the house to get cleaned up after a demon fight-it isn't a lie, Poppet. You an' me got into quite the battle last night, of the erotic kind. An' a shower was completely necessary." Spike winked.

"You're not a demon. Not entirely."

"Then tell her it was a vamp. That's the unvarnished truth." Buffy nodded and leaned against him. "What thoughts are troublin' you? New memories?"

"Not too many." Buffy sighed. While she slept her mind had been knitting together little things, everyday things, like classes, walking and joking with Willow, Spike and her arguing while he was tied up, Giles and her talking in a cluttered kitchen. "I'm worried about tonight."

"Where we're going to go?"

"Yeah."

Spike paused. "Yeah." There was nothing else to say.

The atmosphere of the car was somber for a minute. "It'll be okay. We're tough." Buffy smiled with cheer she didn't feel.

"That's right." Spike nodded firmly. "Spike an' Slayer. We can do anything." _I've been a bad man in the past. I can be bad man tonight if I gotta. If you're bein' bad, to protect the good in your life, are you bein' bad? If it's for her- does it matter? Not a bloody bit._

Riley groaned when he opened his campus email. Dammit. There went all of his hopes that the Buffy situation was over and he wouldn't have to do anything else about it. Walsh was ready to crucify the entire platoon, him and Leland in particular, Leland for screwing up, and Riley for not finding the HSTs and cleaning up after Leland. At least, according to his falsified report, he_ hadn't_ found them. Now he read Willow's terse message with a groan.

"What fresh hell is this?" He muttered, and then stomped off to the Initiative gym for his routine morning workout, vitamins, and protein shake.

"Thank God you're both alright." Giles opened the door to the insistent knocking.

"Aw, Watcher. I'm touched." Spike grinned smugly as he pushed through the door, duster pulling from over his head as he escaped the sunlight.

"Don't push it, Spike." Giles rolled his eyes.

"Were you two always like this?" Buffy groaned.

"Worse." Both men replied as one.

"So this is an improvement, Slayer." Spike smiled cheekily. "Alright, Giles, what's on the menu today? Patrol plans? Forced marches down memory lane?"

"Another CAT scan, and possibly an MRI, for 'Belinda Giles', so we can see how your hippocampus is healing, Buffy. Then we need to talk to Joyce and there's a pile of school assignments to work on with Willow. Then patrol plans." He gestured to the couch and pulled out the note pad he'd been using for the past week. "But first, the usual. Anything to report?"

Spike and Buffy exchanged glances. "Nothing important. Nothing important from the past anyway." Buffy chirped.

"Nothing? At _all_? Spike?" Giles shifted his attention from the girl to the vampire.

Spike paused. He remembered some bloody stupid daytime television show, more arguing with Giles, and feeling alone. No one to talk to. People to argue with, but no one to _talk_ to. Not like...must be that girl, Drusilla. They talked and laughed. They plotted and dreamed. He remembered missing that, even if he didn't remember the woman herself or whatever the topics of conversation were. Just missed feeling close to someone. But that emptiness fled when he woke up with Buffy beside him. "I remember bein' alone. An' knowin' I'm happy now. Not alone anymore." He put his arm around Buffy's shoulders and pulled her snugly to his side. "Past isn't gonna matter much to us. Makin' a whole new future."

"That's right." Buffy looked up at him with an expression of almost soppy affection. Giles recognized her tone as what he called the "engaged Buffy" voice.

"Well...splendid." Giles forced a smile onto his face, realizing that it wasn't nearly as forced as it had been earlier in the week. "Have you eaten?"

"Yes. Oh! We ate all the eggs. If my mother says anything..."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. We've been forced to come up with a myriad of implausible cover stories before, I'm sure we can explain a missing box of eggs." Giles laughed. "Now. Training, or assignments?"

"Anything but assignments." Buffy cried, dropping her duffle bag heavily on the sofa. Spike put down his borrowed bag as well. They had taken everything with them when they left the house on Revello Drive. Buffy felt a pang, as she realized she didn't have any place in particular she could feel was "home"._ But I have Spike. He's home. He's where the heart is._

"We'll start with flexibility. That's something you can lose no matter how much strength and speed you retain."

"She's plenty flexible! She can put her knee clear up to- ooof!" Spike took an elbow to the ribs and stopped talking. "She's flexible." He coughed.

"You can always improve. I've been telling you that for years." Giles pushed the coffee table out of the center of the living room, and tried not to think about where Buffy could put her knees and how Spike had found out about it. Spike and Buffy automatically took an arm of the couch each and pushed it back. "Oh, Spike, you could-" Giles couldn't begin to think of what Spike could do instead. "Hm."

"He's going to get flexible with us." Buffy said happily. "Aren't you?"

"I am?" Spike's dark eyebrows shot up. "Oh, _Slayer_!" His voice sounded torn between protestation, frustration, and defeat. He'd do anything in the world for her- but take stretching lessons from the old guy in glasses?

Giles winced at the thought of trying to teach Spike _anything_ without staking him. Or laughing hysterically. Or both. It wasn't going to go well, and vampires were naturally flexible anyway, sinewy and animalistic in their gracefulness, so he didn't need to be trained. "Buffy, I don't think Spike-"

"Spike is going to be my partner. He slays with me, he trains with me." She crossed her arms.

Giles and Spike exchanged a glance. "She's stubborn, my girl." Spike sighed and started unstrapping his heavy black boots.

"She always has been. Usually for a good cause." Giles rolled up the oriental rug.

"You'll do it? Oh, I love you sooo much!" Buffy kissed Spike suddenly, knocking him backwards onto the couch that was no longer there. She landed, straddling his lap, laughing happily as they collapsed.

"Stoppit, woman. Injure your head again." Spike playfully sat her upright.

Giles sighed. "Let's try not to do that, shall we? We'll go to the hospital in a few hours. Try to stay in one piece until then."

"Only for you, Watcher-mine." Buffy tilted her head back and smiled at her watcher.

Giles turned away quickly so she wouldn't see the mixture of ecstasy and pain on his face. _She used to call me that. My Buffy's still in there somewhere. _

"This is remarkable. I've never seen a TBI heal like this in my life!" The doctor held up two scans and compared them.

"So how much is healed? Fifty percent? Higher?" Spike leaned forward excitedly.

"Well, we don't like to talk in percentages, but I'd hazard around twenty percent."

"Oh." Buffy's face fell. "That doesn't seem like much. An-and I still can't remember anything past about a week or two ago. And it's still all fuzzy."

"I'm afraid it's an area of the brain that still isn't fully mapped, Miss Giles. It appears that there are less of these 'dead spots'-" the doctor held up the two scans and pointed to red areas concentrated on one side of Buffy's brain, "and more 'live spots' than there were last week. But as you can see, it's in no pattern, some are in the center, some are on the outer edges. We're not sure if parts of the hippocampus are more sensitive or not. I can give you some names of neurologists who specialize in this area, if you liked. There's a man in New York-"

"No." Buffy said quickly. Giles and Spike looked at her.

"It's no trouble- Belinda." Giles was quick to offer.

"But, I'm getting better." Buffy looked at him significantly.

"And- Poppet- an' I don't need to go off to the other side of the soddin' country to know we're happy an' we'll get through it."

Giles met their fierce gazes. He supposed they were right. They did know that in three weeks the recovery time would change drastically. And they could hardly expect help from any neurologist when the only research done on the subject was contained on secret government files that talked about reprogramming humans and demons. They'd be laughed out of the office if not believed, or start a national scandal in the extremely unlikely event someone took it seriously.. That was all they needed, more people hunting them down. "You're quite right. In two weeks time, we'll be back, and ask for the names of the specialists you mentioned. If there isn't a large improvement."

"That's up to you, of course, but I just want to caution you- you can't expect another miracle leap like this. There's usually next to no improvement in a short space of time. This is a very special, unusual case."

"She's a very special, unusual girl." Spike replied, looking only at the woman beside him.

Buffy tingled in a way that had nothing to do with sitting in the drafty hospital partition.

"We've got a little time before Willow arrives. Classes are winding down now, she was telling me. Many professors are shortening their lectures, not wanting to cram in too much information before the final." Giles said on the drive home.

"There's a point to you telling me this, isn't there? Not just that Willow's going to be at your apartment soon?" Buffy asked in a dread filled voice.

"You need to do those assignments so you can get the take home finals." Giles explained. He hadn't thought that was part of the deal, but Willow explained last night during their nocturnal hacking session that a medical exemption excused Buffy from missing class and most work, but with just "migraines" some professors were still expecting something handed in to prove the student could take the final, or it was a needed grade or non-excusable assignment.

"I thought I got out of that!" Buffy pouted.

"So did I!" Spike looked put out.

"So did we all, but apparently not."

"What am I even taking?" With a miserable huff, Buffy ducked her head under the blanket with Spike. With a naughty gleam in his eye, his hands immediately wandered up the front of her tight blouse and traced her breasts lightly.

"Psychology, English, history, and one other, but they didn't send work." Giles explained.

"Isn't the psychology broad the one that pumped me full of hardware? Then sent more goons on the hunt to scramble us up?" Spike peered angrily out from under the blanket, hands no longer interested in Buffy in his indignation.

"I can't just do homework for a psycho who tried to kill my future husband!" Buffy tore the blanket off and Spike hissed as he yanked it back up to avoid the sun. "And me...sorta."

"According to her, you're a normal girl. Acting otherwise is playing into her hands." Giles said. "Although personally, I'd like to lock her in one of her own bloody cages and shove half a dozen unchipped demons in with her." Giles shifted viciously and turned off before their street.

"Oh, nice one, Rupert." Spike said appreciatively.

"I thought it fitting." Giles grinned coldly. In a moment he pulled into a small shopping center. "We need to pick up some more blood. I won't be a moment. And- I never thought in my life I'd say this- but the two of you stay under the blanket until I get back. I don't want anyone from the university to see Buffy."

"No worries." Spike leered.

"No problem." Buffy giggled.

"No earthly way I can live through this for much longer." Giles grumbled and headed into the butcher's as they disappeared under the blanket.

"Willow! Willow!" Riley hissed and followed her out of the college lecture hall.

"Not here." Willow said from the corner of her mouth, walking away hurriedly.

"But you emailed me and -"

"And told you to call me _after_ class!"

"This _is _after class. Willow, what's up? What's the problem that you needed to talk to me about?"

"I need to talk to you but not on campus, some place private."

"Can I walk with you?"

"Are you crazy? You're not supposed to be seen with us." Willow reminded him.

"Well, a little late for that, I'm already involved." Riley was used to subterfuge, but he wasn't used to feeling guilty about it. He had an honest nature, he was raised that way. All of this felt abhorrent to him, and some part of him was trying to bring it into the open. "I'm just a TA walking one of the students to their dorm room and heading in with her to talk." No, that didn't look good either.

"People are going to think you're fooling around with me. People might think my good grades are because you're- you're getting sexual favors from me!" Willow sounded horrified and furious. "There is no way my academic reputation goes down the toilet for you, pal. You can call me in twenty minutes!"

"I don't know, but my line might be tapped." Riley murmured, leaning near her head for a second."The email is one thing- you could be asking me a question about class. But a conversation in detail- I need to keep it private."

"Oh." That changed things. "And pay phones- not so private." She sighed and shook her head. "Don't walk with me. But meet me at Giles' house. Twenty minutes. And if you try anything funny well- Anya isn't the only one who can swing a mean flowerpot."

"I thought you and Buffy were so sweet." Riley muttered bitterly.

"We are. We _were_." Willow suddenly shot him a look of pure venom. "You better hope she gets back to being sweet, Mister. Or I'll... I'll- well- I don't know exactly what I'll do, but you're not going to like it!" She turned on her heel and trotted away, leaving Riley looking after her, misery growing.

"Hail, hail the gang's all here!" Xander knocked on Giles' door.

"I thought we weren't a gang!" Buffy opened the door with a grin.

"Anya? Xander? What are you doing here so early?" Giles asked. "Not that I'm not pleased to see you." He added quickly.

"Xander's back to being unemployed. The construction work at the multicultural museum thingy ended." Anya sighed regretfully.

"But only for two days. On Thursday I start my job as one of the staples of the American experience." Buffy and Spike regarded him curiously. "I join the ranks of the elite. The pizza delivery guys."

"Vital." Anya nodded proudly.

"Blimey." Spike groaned. "What a loser."

"At least I'm paying my own way." Xander said harshly. Spike was silent, no reply to that.

Buffy glared at Xander. "He started it!" Anya accused. "Sorry, Spike, you're fun to talk to, but you don't insult my Xander!"

"Right you are, Demon Girl." Spike sighed. "Congrats on the job. Your bird is well looked after. An' that's all any guy really wants. To take care of what he loves."

Xander blinked. A modicum of respect from Spike. Related to loving and caring for the girl in your life, but respect was respect. He nodded in acceptance of his congratulations, unable to think of anything to say, silently thinking about how love could really change a person.

Buffy watched Spike's face settle into a far away look, and knew he was thinking about tonight, about all the things that they had to work out. She wouldn't let him sink into that despair, not when she knew it didn't really matter as long as they were together. "You take care of me! Remember?" Buffy took his hands fervently. " 'Everything she didn't even know she needed.' That's you. Everything I need to be okay."

"Slayer..." Spike forgot the audience surrounding them and pulled Buffy into his arms, preparing to kiss her.

The touching scene was interrupted by Willow's arrival. The amateur witch burst through the door, and everyone jumped. "Riley- coming here! Need to talk. Ran. Owwww." Willow rubbed her side and panted out a message while leaning in the doorway.

"Wills, are you okay?" Xander pulled her all the way into the house, shut the door and locked it. "We have to start locking that. I can't take anymore dramatic entrances, cool as they are."

"Riley is coming here? I thought he was calling?" Giles mentally prepared himself for another invasion of his home.

"His line might be tapped. He's not sure." Willow rubbed her side. "I told him twenty minutes- about fifteen minutes ago. I wanted to get here first, so I ran."

"Am I guessing right when I say you aren't a runner, Red?" Spike put his hand lightly on her arm and steered her to a chair. Privately, he was pleased to note that she didn't flinch, and he didn't feel hungry. Of course, he was full, but he was going to take all the good he could from the situation.

"Hate sports." Willow's voice was normal now. "Buffy and Spike need to get upstairs."

"An instruction I'll be glad to obey." Spike smirked. Anya giggled and Buffy blushed. Xander and Giles heaved long suffering sighs.

"What exactly are you talking to him about?" Buffy, as much as she enjoyed the thought of curling up and sleeping- or doing something else- with Spike, didn't want to leave the immediate area without more information.

"The chip. It doesn't work anymore. Spike can hurt other vampires." Willow said. "It isn't working that great against humans, either." Giles thought of Buffy's newly bitten neck. He knew they said vampire bites during- oh dear Lord, intercourse weren't painful, but it was still a bite, dammit.

"No... it did, I tried to-" Spike was stopped by an elbow to his ribs for the second time that day. "I tried not to ever hurt my Slayer." Spike improvised, and shot Buffy an annoyed look. Super strong or not, she had elbows like steel poles and he wasn't enjoying the sensation of having one jab him in the side.

"We're going to get upstairs." Buffy said. "We'll be able to hear what you say. If we hear anything going wrong, we'll be coming down."

"Okay. What- what do we say?" Willow looked to Giles.

"Well, firstly, we ask him to tell us exactly what the definition of the chip is, what its parameters are. Then we explain that the chip isn't functional in conjunction with the neuro taser. Depending on what the idiots are trying to do, they need to know that they can use the chip, or the taser, but not both."

"How about not_ anything_?" Spike cried.

"I hate to agree with him, but I agree with him." Xander nodded. "It's...sick. Playing around with people's heads. I don't like demons, or vamps," he glared at Spike, "but I never thought you should keep them in cages like some demented zookeeper."

"We're all in agreement there." Giles spoke quietly, not quite meeting Buffy and Spike's furious eyes. "You two better get upstairs. Don't do anything. O-on the bed. O-or the floor. Just don't do _anything_."

"We're in love, not bachelor bedroom is safe." Spike grimaced, and took Buffy's hand. "C'mon, Slayer."

Once upstairs, Buffy found Spike leading her into the far corner and whispering quickly. "I was gonna tell 'em about the chip. It still works on humans. I- I might have bruised you up a little last night, might've bitten you, but it was in love. It was in passion, I thought sure you weren't in pain."

"I wasn't." Buffy stroked his chiseled cheeks with her thumbs as she cradled his face in her hands. "I don't want to tell them about the real reason I know it works on humans." She swallowed. "Baby, do you remember in the cave? When you vamped for the first time in front of me?"

"Yeah." Spike winced. "You hit me, I hit you- well, I tried."

"You went down, jerking all over. Like- there was a big invisible hand shaking you. And it was all my fault." She pressed kisses to his forehead and then around his curling hairline.

"You didn't remember what a vampire face looked like, it startled you." Spike shrugged. "But you should tell them the chip is holding against humans. I'm not a threat to them."

"I don't want them to know. I want them to tell Mr. Special Forces that the neuro taser knocks out the chip. I want him to think he's unleashing all the demons if they use the neuro taser again. I don't want anyone, evil or not, to lose their minds like this. It's slow torture. There's no mercy in it." Buffy bit her lip. "I'm a slayer. But I don't think I ever drew out someone's death, made them hurt. And this hurts." Buffy shuddered in his arms.

Spike soothed her, rubbing his hands from shoulders to waist, following the curve of her spine. "Wish I could say the same. That I never played with my food. But apparently I did." Spike took an unneeded gulp of air. "Spike. William the Bloody. I don't have to tell you why they called me that."

"You can change."

"I _have_ changed." Spike swore. "The point is, Slayer, I was a right violent, bastard, but I don't think I ever did anything like this." He twisted his shoulders and neck painfully, as if something was bubbling and boiling inside him. Something he knew, but didn't remember. "I've seen broken minds before. Loved- loved someone damaged. And I know there's nothin' worse than torturing the heart an' mind."

"I love you." Buffy held him tight, feeling the pain rolling off of him and onto her.

"Love you. Don't want anyone to ever think I hurt you. 'Cause I wouldn't hurt you, Luv."

"When he goes, we'll tell them the truth. For now-"

"Let 'em think the mad dog slipped his collar?" Spike smirked suddenly.

"Willow can't lie without stammering. And Xander gets much more righteous anger-y when he thinks I'm in danger." Buffy smirked back. "Another thing I'm sure about without a lot of memory to back me on."

"Oh, God, Baby. Makes me hot when you show me the devious side of yourself."

"Slayers have to be cunning. We hunt the most cunning demons." Her tongue snaked between his snarling lips, tracing his currently blunt teeth.

"Rupert's gonna die when he finds out what I did up here." Spike hissed softly, returning the embrace.

"Why? What'd you do?"

"Nothin' yet." Spike purred throatily. "Doesn't mean I won't- if you keep flauntin' that beautiful bad girl I fell in love with."

"_Sexy. Beast_." Buffy nipped off each word as she tipped her head back and revealed her lightly scarred neck.

"_Bloody. Fuck._" Spike groaned, and wrenched open the closet, carrying her in one arm into its depths as her legs wrapped around his waist.

"Good afternoon." Giles opened the door before Riley could even knock. "Place your belt in my possession before you enter this house."

"Sir, I don't-"

"Place your belt in my possession before you enter this house." Giles repeated, ignoring the boy's protests.

Riley sighed, and untucked his polo shirt, and then slid the ultra thin belt from his waist and laid it across Giles' outstretched palm. He still had his spares strapped to his calf.

"Your legs?" Giles pointed downward with his eyes.

"Honestly, Sir-"

"Honestly what? Do you even have any idea of who you're dealing with? Do you think I don't know every place you could conceal a weapon and where you have?" Giles asked softly. "We need to give you information, you need to speak to us. I respect that this is give and take, but you've done enough damage to my family. Your bag of tricks doesn't enter my house, out of my hands."

"But you expect me to trust you, with your trained vampire and your crossbows?"

Giles hand shot out and grabbed Riley by the collar. "I expect you to do what I say before I show you that there's a little monster in every man, demon or not."

From the window, Willow and Anya exchanged weak-kneed glances. "What?" Xander demanded.

"That's so hot." Anya whispered, as if it was obvious.

"Giles? Giles is like forty five! He could be our dad."

"It's the growly voice and the protective instinct. It's evolutionary."

"It's- it's all tummy wobbly making." Willow was less technical.

"Oh for God's sake." Xander dragged them away from the window. "All the girls in my life are crazy," He snapped his fingers in front of Willow's starry eyes. "Focus. You're chief interrogator."

"Me?" She squeaked.

"Yes. You did it so well last time." Anya praised. "It's because you look innocent and speak softly. It's a surprise when you have testicles." Willow blushed and Xander blanched.

"Balls. Balls is the euphemism you want, Sweetie."

"Oh. Balls. Whatever. You're tough underneath. It's disarming." With a wide smile Anya pushed Willow forward, colliding him with Riley as Giles led the young man, now disarmed, into the house.

Riley shook himself off. "Look, I'm helping because we screwed up and hurt Buffy. You stop manhandling me. I'm even okay with the weapons staying on the coffee table, but if anyone comes at me with a flowerpot or a fist and you'll see why I'm the youngest squad leader in fifty years of special forces."

"_Really_?" Xander couldn't help but sound impressed. The part of him that didn't hate the guy as a representative of what had hurt Buffy thought that the commandos were like demi-gods, every cool army flic he loved come to life. "I mean. Really-that's great, but it doesn't matter here, dude." Xander tried to wipe the enthusiasm from his voice.

"I'm not roughing you up or anything. I just needed to tell you something important!" Willow squeaked and stepped back from Riley.

"About Buffy?"

"About Spike."

"We had a question first." Giles interposed.

Upstairs, Buffy bit softly on Spike's palm as it covered her mouth. "Shh, shh, Slayer. I can hear the commando's voice." Spike stood up, lips wet, tongue swirling across his bottom lip to lick up his newly discovered favorite taste.

"But- but it was so good." She pushed herself off of the back wall she'd been leaning on.

"Duty an' all that." Spike tucked himself back into his trousers, still hard in spite of Buffy and his hand's attentions.

"More later?"

"As much as you can stand."

"That's a lot." She giggled, and pulled her jeans up. Spike led them back into the bedroom and they tried to look innocent as they eavesdropped.

"Riley, can you tell us the exact description of what the behavior modification chip is supposed to do?"

"Control violent impulses. It senses the uptick in the brain's neurotransmitters when a violent action is about to occur and zaps the implant's owner."

"And that must be some pretty hardcore stuff." Xander winced. "It stops demons and vamps? Do you know how much stronger they are than humans?"

"It's a powerful dose, I know. And I know you people don't like that we do it. But I don't necessarily like what you do. You kill them. We just restrain them." That wasn't his personal preference, but it was one of Walsh's litany of justifications. Riley realized that those justifications to be merciful or to be ruthless changed from day to day, and it gave him a sinking feeling in his gut.

"But then they can't feed themselves." Anya pointed out. "You really are just letting them starve to death- except they can't die. Well, vampires can't die, although I can't speak for all the other demons you've caught. So you're really just forcing at least some of them to live forever, withering and dying more and more until someone _does_ kill them. So you kill them. Slowly. Without getting your hands dirty." She stepped closer to Xander. "I don't think you're a very nice man."

"I am a nice man." Riley insisted through clenched teeth, in spite of his stomach churning.

"Let's ask the demons in your 'zoo' about that." Xander muttered, holding Anya close to his chest, feeling her shaking. She had told him how scared she was that they'd take to hunting ex-demons if they ever knew they existed. If anyone had "balls", it was her. She was telling it like it was, even though she was scared. He'd always liked Buffy because she was beautiful and powerful, like nothing else. And now here he had something even better. Beautiful, and powerful- but vulnerable. Someone strong, who still needed him to protect her. "Shh. Shh, Ahn. He's not going to be here for long."

Riley turned his gaze back to Giles. Some girl was cowering away from him, because of his job. Her words echoed in his head. _So you kill them. Slowly. Without getting your hands dirty. _And he'd killed plenty himself. He didn't regret that. Demons, in his opinion, deserved to be exterminated like any other pest. It was just the way they were twisting things. That was all. _Nothing to do with the fact that I stopped killing the threats to humans and started bringing the threats back so the lab techs could play with them. _"Did I answer your question?" Riley demanded.

"Not quite. Could you tell me what the- the chip's clinical definition is? Or the definition you received during your briefing?"

"How does this relate to Buffy?"

"Just answer." Willow whispered.

"Let me think... Okay. When Walsh explained it, she said 'The behavior modification chip prevents the HSTs from harming any living thing.'. I'm her TA, and a squad leader, so I got to see more research, but that was the general statement we all received."

"Any living thing. _Living _thing!" Giles slapped his hand to his head. "Riley, you're boss is an ass. A complete and total ass! Spike can- all of them can- still fight other demons, kill other demons. You can still have any amount of carnage from these chipped demons!"

"So? Not human, not our problem." Riley shook his head, eyes squinting in disbelief. "The more demons they kill, the better."

"You'll start a war!" Anya cried.

"With no human casualties. Not seeing the problem." Riley spread his hands with a jerk of exasperation.

"He's not a big picture guy." Xander shook his head. "Wills- move into phase two."

"Phase two?"

"Neuro tasers and chips don't mix." Willow said grimly.

Riley took a minute to process. "Spike?"

"Who else?"

"Not- not Buffy. He said he loved her!"

"He does. He's still a vampire. It doesn't mean he can't hurt her." Willow made her eyes hard and her voice steely. Buffy's smiles and blushes let Willow know the bites didn't hurt. Riley didn't need to know that. She caught Anya's puzzled look, but shook her head slightly and Anya's face slid back into concerned impassivity.

"Why should I believe you? What if you're just trying to get us to stop the tests?" _That'd be okay with me. I liked it better when we patrolled and kept people safe, not were glorified lab rat catchers._

"Buffy? Would you come down here, please?" Giles called up the steps.

Buffy and Spike examined each other, and deciding they looked innocent enough, they slowly headed down stairs, holding hands. "Agent Finn." Buffy said cooly.

"Wanker." Spike was more aggressive in his greeting.

"She looks fine." Riley breathed deeply, calmly. It's a trick. They just want you to stop using the neuro tasers. T_hey'll say it affects the chip, and they think the research will stop. Research won't stop unless it endangers human lives. But it already does. All those people, human people, still waiting for their memories to come back. Okay, they weren't in danger of losing their physical lives. What about human minds? What about their lives? Not dying, but the lives they had, that they lived?_

"What's goin' on?" Spike asked.

"They say you're shock collar doesn't work anymore." Riley taunted.

Spike slid seamlessly into his fangs and ridges, eyes amber and menacing. He kept his gaze hard, momentarily glad that Xander and Willow were still having trouble accepting him. Both of them gasped and moved back, and Riley's eyes widened a fraction. "Yeah. That's right. It doesn't."

"Pulling out your party face doesn't mean anything." Riley mentally calculated the distance from him to the vampire, and the weapons belt on the arm of the sofa.

"You want me to prove the beast is unleashed, is that it?"

"Buffy wouldn't be standing so close to you if you were 'unleashed'."

"Riley..." Buffy lifted her hair and slowly turned her head, stretching out her throat to show the puncture wounds to the best advantage.

Riley's world tipped and rocked before righting itself. "I let him go- because he loved you." He gasped.

"I still love her." Spike possessively took her arm.

"I still love him." Buffy slid close to him. "But everyone eats."

"No." Riley shook his head.

"No, you're right." Spike let his face slip back into handsome, pale, humanity. "I don't feed on her. But I can bite her. I marked her. She's mine now." He circled the boy , one arm still on Buffy's waist, bringing her alongside him. "An' I can bite anyone I choose to." Spike suddenly lunged forward. The chip didn't fire, because Spike was acting the part of the villain. Only acting this time, he had no intention to hurt. And God, he was impressed with himself. He was so good at being bad.

Riley felt the hand on his throat and the cool cheek to the back of his head before he moved. He had forgotten how fast vamps could be, how they could blur the air, so fast, so lethal. He tensed, deciding to flip the vampire as soon as he stepped a little closer, just a little more, for leverage.

"I could bite _you_. You look like you'd taste good. Roast beef an' apple pie. An' the army steroids they feed you in your food, that you don't even know about. Oh, they do. I can smell 'em in you." Spike laughed and released Finn as he stepped away. "I can bite you. I can bite anyone. I choose not to. Because I'm on the good guy team now. Doesn't mean anyone else you try your tinker toys on will be so well behaved."

"He has someone to live for, remember for." Buffy spoke up. "We had friends who saved us, brought us back to ourselves. What do you think it'll be like for all the demons you try this on, when they're scared and confused and have nothing to hope for, nothing to remember?"

"All demons have to have at least a mate. Or- or there wouldn't be little demons." Willow said softly.

"Every vampire has a sire. Some have packs. They may not have anything more than a casual relationship, but they have a relationship." Giles stared at Riley over the rims of his glasses.

"Take it away, and no amount of army 'reprogramming' is going to stop them from going crazy on whoever they can reach." Xander winced. "Major bloodbath."

Riley listened, their words striking hammer blows in his carefully constructed world. "What do you want me to do exactly?" He whispered.

"Hey. He might be one of the good guys after all." Anya brightened and stopped clinging so tightly to Xander.

"Let's not be hasty." Spike mumbled. He was pressed close to his girl, holding her. He liked being the baddie. It was fun, it was a rush, power and hunger and fear all together. And if he ever acted on it, it'd tear them apart. It scared him, knowing there was so much monster in him. And that the man had to fight hard to stay in control. Buffy looked back, hand twisting slowly up his neck, bringing his head down for a kiss. "Okay, Slayer?"

"Very okay." She breathed a whisper in his ear. "You are a fabulous actor."

"I try. Some of it wasn't hard to act out." He confessed in a similar tone, only able to reach her incredibly sensitive ears.

"The past loses. The future wins." She winked.

"True." Confidence restored, he smiled, calm once again.

Willow swallowed and spoke to Riley. "What you can do is make a report. "Say you saw Spike- Hostile Seventeen attack vampires and a human. They'll put two and two together. He was tasered with the new gizmo, it killed the old gizmo. Big problem, and it'll stop the project."

"I can't keep lying, guys. I'm not betraying my country or my government for the sake of one vampire with a conscience."

"Well, are you going to sit back and let your government betray your fellow man?" Willow asked desperately. "Leaving these guys to create an army of monsters?"

"An army of monsters? They're not!" Riley scoffed.

Willow raised her voice in a shrill, tense demand. "What in the world would you do experiments on them and reprogram them for if you didn't want to keep them? This seems way too in depth and too big to be a 'catch and release' program!" Riley opened his mouth and she shushed him, shaking her finger in his face. "Don't you tell me they're doing these things on demons to see if they're safe for humans, because they did them on humans first! The HSTs were too rare, too valuable. Is that who you are, huh? Someone who says humans are cheap and easy to find, so let's protect all the rare, evil things?"

Riley paced, hand raking his hair. "I don't know why they keep them, I don't know why they do what they do. I'm not the brains of the outfit, I'm a soldier. I follow orders."

"Isn't that what Hitler's men said?" whispered Willow.

"I serve a free nation! Don't you dare compare-"

"Okay, so it's not the whole nation." Xander jumped in. "But what the hell do you call that lab if not a concentration camp? What do you call the experiments they do on humans - and the demons, although I don't care as much about them- if not torture?"

Riley sat down. "I need to think."

"I need- Slayer, I need to -" Spike pulled Buffy down the hall and locked them in the bathroom.

"Spike?" Buffy watched him sink to the edge of the tub.

"When he talks- when he's here, I can remember it better. I remember that place better." Spike's hands starting rubbing his scalp, feeling for the scar that had already faded.

"Sh. It's over." Buffy held him.

"I thought it was you. I thought you'd done it to me. Thought you'd finally gotten funding." He swallowed. "That's why I was so mad at you. That's why I wanted to kill time."

"I'd never do that to you. I promise. I know I wouldn't have, and I wouldn't do it now, either."

"I'm not bein' strong for you just now. I'm sorry, Slayer."

"It's okay. You're allowed to show me the pain. It's just you and me here. The rest of the world doesn't exist. Just you and me, in this room. Safe."

"You an' me." Spike let his head fall forward, caught against the softness of her stomach. Her hands stroked his hair and he sighed. "Safe."

"Riley?" Giles said gently.

"I said I needed to think!"

"You need to act, dude. Or you'll be up in another Nuremberg some day, singing the 'I was just obeying orders' song." Xander urged worriedly.

Riley shot him a poisonous glare. "What do you think I can do? March in and say I have moral reasons that just came to me, and now I want you to interrupt a billion dollar project?"

Anya spoke in the silence that followed. "There's always a board of inquiry or something higher than your immediate superiors. Can't you just send the findings, a report? At least get them to start sniffing around?"

Riley considered. "It'd take time for them to act, once they received it. This operation is so classified, by the time it gets through all the right channels..."

"Then you'd best start the ball rolling now." Giles said quietly.

Xander wordlessly handed him his belt and other weapons.

"Thank you." Riley said out of habit.

"Be the one to stand up." Xander didn't quite look him in the eye. "All my life, I've thought you special ops guys, even just the regular soldiers, were awesome. Guardians of justice and freedom and a credit to our country. What's going on in there makes no one proud."

"I didn't realize how far it was going." Riley sighed, guiltily.

"But it's okay. You're getting a second chance once you realized things went wrong!" Willow encouraged, rubbing his arm.

"We're big on second chances here." Anya beamed suddenly. "This is one more chance central."

Riley had to laugh. "You sure are a peculiar girl." He extended his hand.

Anya took a a quick little gasping breath and blurted. "I'm an ex- demon. Don't shoot!"

"What? _What_?" Riley's hand dropped from the air.

"Don't you dare hurt me." Anya bit her lip. "I'm telling you- because I got a second chance. So did Spike. We were waaaay worse than you are. You kind of got caught up in something icky. You can fight your way out."

"Is everyone in here part weirdo? No offense." Riley looked stricken.

"No." Xander shook his head. He gave Anya a soft smile. "We're all just kinda brave."

Riley decided not to process anything else at the moment. He couldn't, even if he tried. "I'm going. I'm going to go file the report, and God help me. I guess if you don't see me in class Willow, you can assume I got fragged or court martialed."

"If you ever need help, come here." Giles said quickly.

"We're good at hiding fugitives." Willow grinned.

"Yeah, I see that." Riley looked down the hall, to the closed bathroom door. "Tell them what I'm going to do?"

"We will." Giles promised. "And you must promise to come here, or contact us if you need help. It's what we do, and we are rather involved in this mess."

"Thank you, Sir. I'll do that." Riley shook his hand and then Xander's. He looked at the closed door again. "I'm sorry I didn't realize this, before it got to them." He smiled sadly.

Willow returned the smile with a bittersweet look of her own. "As long as you realized it eventually. Buffy and Spike would be the first to tell you, it's never too late to forgive and give it one more try."

_To be continued..._


	11. Chapter 11

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Notes: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Dedicated to Lithium Reaper, Hannah the Bloody, DLillith21, GoodfortheSoul, McPastey, ginar369, fortunefavors, Lil-Leti, and Seapea_

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part XI

Spike heard the door shut, and sensed four heartbeats slowing down with the absence of the commando. "He left." Spike lifted his head slightly from where it rested on Buffy's shoulder. Her warm cheek pressed his platinum hair as she raised her own head. They were crouched on the floor together, her on her knees, and him on his seat, letting himself be comforted for a moment.

"Are you ready to go out?" Buffy asked softly.

"Yeah. He takes the bad associations with him." Spike lied with a masterful effort. Just seeing the man reminded him of the rage and fear associated with being captured, held, and operated on. His absence didn't do anything to erase the painful things his mind was forcibly dredging up, but at least without his physical presence, he could try to focus on something else.

"That's not true. I know it isn't." Buffy stroked his hair.

"I'm a real good liar. Prob'ly." Spike shrugged with a hollow laugh. "Haven't remembered that yet."

"Oh, you're all the bad things. All the_ good_ bad things. Sinfully delicious." Buffy purred sensually, but she didn't remove her arms from around his neck. She was still comforting him. "Spike, you don't have to pretend for me."

"Look, Poppet, it's not fair... I'm so desperate to get my memories back, an' at the same time, all I want to do is forget. It makes no bloody sense." He whispered apologetically. He knew how badly she wanted to remember, and here he was, wishing his memories away.

"No, Baby. It makes perfect sense. If I could change things... I don't know what I would do." Buffy pressed their foreheads together as they stood up. "I do know I'd like to forget every bad thing that every passed between us, and only know that I love you."

"Always should've loved you." Spike kissed the tip of her nose, her forehead and lastly, lips. "I do now."

"And that's all that matters."

"You okay?" Xander asked hesitantly when Spike and Buffy emerged.

"Okay enough." Spike replied in a flat voice.

"Do you find yourself- remembering things- when Riley's here?" Giles asked curiously.

"Yes." Spike answered shortly.

"It's not something you need to know." Buffy quickly said. "Guys, look, I wanted to tell you, about the bites?"

"Bites? Plural?" Xander covered his eyes wearily. "Why not? What about the bites, Buff?"

"I still can't hurt humans." Spike smiled conspiratorially. "But Mr. Army Regs doesn't need to know that."

"I knew it!" Willow snapped her fingers in self-satisfaction. "You said bites didn't hurt."

"Not the way he does it." Buffy's cheeks colored and her eyes darted shyly from Spike to Xander and Giles, who she knew wouldn't approve.

Giles looked pained and Xander looked ill, but neither of them said anything. "So you can't hurt humans?"

"Nope. Don't want to anyway." Spike slipped his arm more tightly around his lover. "I reckon store bought'll do me jus' fine, when I have something so tasty for dessert."

"Spike! Stoppit." Buffy giggled.

"They're all giggly again." Xander moaned.

"Not my fault this time." Willow sighed happily. "I'm guilt free girl."

"Damn... I liked the cookies." Anya grumbled.

"Thought you lot would be busier rejoicin' over the fact that I'm off the sauce." Spike chortled.

"W-well, this is something remarkable." Giles mulled aloud. "A chance for redemption. You could do more than simply not kill- you could join with Buffy, help save lives. You could atone for your past crimes."

Spike let out a frustrated sigh. "Y'know, they aren't crimes- exactly. Everybody eats."

"You ate _people_. Crime." Willow pointed out.

"I know, I know, I got it." Spike gave in, though privately he wasn't too deeply remorseful. Partially because he couldn't remember what he'd done, and partially because he knew it hadn't been him in control of his cravings, not like he was now. In addition, he still had an attitude about it, partly because he was still sick inside that he didn't feel bad as he knew he should. But that ended now. Slayer deserved someone to fight by her side, an ally, not an enemy. "So. My redemption-" Spike cupped Buffy's cheek in his hand. "- is the most beautiful one ever."

Buffy nodded into his palm and then flickered her eyes to her friends. "What did Riley say before he left?" Their next actions would hinge on what he said.

"He's going to file a report with the higher ups. Anonymously. A detailed one about what neuro tasers do to chipped demons, and how they'll have a horde of violent, amnesiac monsters to contend with if they keep experimenting." Anya said. "Also, he's going to mention how a lot of demons are being kept for research, in case the government doesn't realize that their catch and release program lost the release part."

"Great." Buffy nodded.

"Yeah. But why'd they believe some anonymous report, even if it's full of secret knowledge an' classified information?"

"They'll at least look into it." Willow said. "They'd have to check it out, it's too scary not to check it out."

"They'd check it out a helluva lot more seriously if he had a little proof to show 'em." Spike smirked.

"True." Giles nodded.

"What'd you have in mind?" Xander asked suspiciously.

"Lemme talk to Slayer a minute." Spike pulled Buffy into a corner and spoke to her in a whisper. Whatever he said made her smile and lick her lips.

"This can't be good." Willow chewed her lower lip.

"But I bet it'll be fun." Anya's eyes lit up.

"Do you want to tell me why you and Anya have a bunch of blank tapes and a video camera in your basement?" Buffy teased Xander a few hours later, after she and Spike had talked them into a plan to get some proof, and spent some time practicing their plan.

"Uhhh- no." Xander locked his eyes on the darkening road. The four of them were in his car, while Willow and Giles followed in the Citroen.

"I'll tell you later." Anya turned to the back seat and addressed Spike.

"No you won't!" Xander poked her knee warningly.

"It's alright, Anya." Spike gave her a grin. "I get the picture."

"We have some of those, too, but they're private." Anya said cheerfully.

Xander groaned softly and Buffy giggled. "Ahn, you shouldn't hang out with him."

"Xander, we've been through this. You can't object to Spike unless you answer those objections about your own girlfriend." Buffy said sternly.

"That's not the reason, Buff. Those two are just going to be a bad influence on each other."

"Riley isn't going to buy this." Willow muttered, setting up the camera on the unfortunate base of a large headstone.

"I think we'll be able to tell him a half-truth. That we filmed for his benefit- but not that the fighting was- as it were- entirely choreographed." Giles turned his headlights on and Xander did the same across the way, creating a small square of light in the midst of the cemetery.

"Is someone going to yell 'lights, camera, action'?" Anya called. "That's what they do in the movies."

"This isn't the movies." Giles rubbed his forehead.

"This is way more wiggy than the movies." Xander pointed out.

"Can we get started?" Buffy demanded impatiently. "Aren't I supposed to go kill _actual_ bad guys tonight?"

"Yeah, an' I'm anxious for my film debut." Spike smirked and stood close behind Buffy. "Excited, Slayer?" He whispered in a voice just for her.

"Very." She breathed. "I can tell _you_ are." She wiggled her rear back into the tight black denim behind her, feeling a definite bulge.

"Can't help it. Tusslin' with you- on the floor, on the ground-" Spike swallowed a groan, "dammit, Slayer, stop wrigglin' on me."

"I can't help it either. It's like last night. The Slayer wants her Sexy Beast." She pouted mischievously.

"Oooh, pouty." Spike moved in to nip her lower lip.

"We should have packed some ice water." Anya wandered over to Xander after watching Spike and Buffy's embrace start to get more carnal. "They're not going to make it past the fight scene."

"There isn't anything _past_ the fight scene." Willow pointed out reasonably.

"Unless you want to send Riley some very controversial footage, you're still going to need ice water." Anya insisted.

"Oh for God's sake!" Giles shouted. Buffy and Spike sprang apart guiltily. "Wait until you're alone!"

"Sorry, Giles." Spike took Buffy's hand and walked into the line of the camera. "With Slayer, it feels like we're the only two people in the world, isn't that right, Pet?"

"Mm, very right." Buffy kissed him.

"Let's just do this, shall we?" Giles sighed heavily. He was forced to admit defeat. He'd always been forced to admit defeat with Buffy. Some Watchers had implicit control of their charges, but he had long ago realized that he and Buffy would be equals. Then he'd come to love her and respect her amazing strength and courage, her sheer bloody stubbornness, and realized he'd probably never sway her when she was determined. And she was determined to love Spike, even with knowledge of their pasts. Giles had to admit that though wouldn't like it, he would never be able to change it now.

"Am I on?" Anya asked eagerly, breaking the stillness.

"Yes. you're on." Willow had to smile. Anya was perfect for this. Anya wasn't afraid of Spike like she and Xander were, and the ex- demon and Spike were at ease with each other, in some weird "we used to be evil" bonding way. Or some "we both have no mouth to brain filter" way.

"Try not to sound so- well- um- fake." Xander advised his girlfriend hesitantly.

"I do not sound fake!" Anya gasped indignantly.

"Maybe a little." Buffy pointed out gently. " 'Oh, help, oh, help, a big vampire is after me' doesn't sound believable."

"I would say that." Anya defended herself.

"No, Demon Girl." Spike stepped forward. "You'd just scream." He vamped. "Red- turn that camera on."

Anya pulled her hair forward, covering her face somewhat, making herself less recognizable. Spike suddenly came right up behind her, and she couldn't deny she felt a prickle of adrenaline shoot through her spine. "You better run. Or you'd be dinner if I wanted it." Spike snarled in a low husky voice in her ear. "Remember that." He snapped his fangs shut right next to her ear.

"Anya!" Xander cried, his voice full of actual fear. Spike lifted his hands and stepped back. Anya let out a shaky breath and nodded to her boyfriend, and to her "attacker."

"It's okay, Xander." Anya called softly, wishing her heart would believe her mouth and slow down.

"Ready!" Willow cried.

"Run." Spike hissed.

Anya ran across the cemetery. This was so much more fun when we were chasing each other and laughing around the living room, she thought uneasily. There was a swooshing sound behind her. Spike's coat, billowing as he ran. He'd let her have a head start. _He's going to get me, he's going to get me-_ Anya screamed softly, a short gasp, letting herself give into the mounting panic she'd feel if this were real. And then he caught her for real. She let out a shriek.

Spike pulled her to face him. _Poor thing, she actually looks a bit scared_. With his eye not facing the camera, he gave her a wink, and loosened his grip. "Well, look what we have here." Spike drawled.

"Let me go!" Anya managed to sound genuinely frantic. She struggled back, and her feet slipped in the damp grass. She fell, and felt Spike's fingers tighten, catching her. But the both of them kept heading towards the ground. To the camera, it should seem that he was pushing her down, but Anya felt calmness flooding her, because she knew he was easing her down before she fell.

"I'll let you go. Jus' want a taste." Spike licked his fangs and grabbed her under the chin. His chip didn't fire, because he didn't mean any harm. His demon however, was severely annoyed. Spike'd made sure to eat is fill before filming this little falsified proof scene. But some part of him remembered the hunt and the kill and the feeling of fear drenched blood and how sweet it was.

"Hey! Have a taste of_ this_!" Buffy dragged Spike off of Anya, who fled to Xander's protective arms.

Spike licked his lips more sensuously. "I'd love to." He purred. His demon roared inside. _No, mate. You don't call the shots anymore, I do. An' that beautiful, brash little piece is why we're good now. An' there's somethin' sweeter than fear soaked blood gushin' in your mouth. It's sex soaked, cum soaked, sweet pantin' scream soaked blood that she gives you. 'Cause she _loves_ you._

Buffy and Spike circled, their eyes pleading for touches and embraces. Fortunately, the camera couldn't read that from a distance. "Shouldn't have said 'taste', huh?" Buffy breathed. Now all she could picture was his head between her thighs or her stellar orgasm that happened when his fangs came into play.

"Later." Spike breathed back, and lunged.

"This is very convincing." Willow hissed to Giles, who shushed her, pointing to the recorder.

Buffy fell under his hands, and then rolled to pin him. He pulled her off and they traded blows- which didn't quite connect. What did connect was their hands and their hips, a constant series of pulling and pushing each other down and fighting to be on top. To the observer, it looked like a brawling fight for dominance. To the couple, it felt like an incredibly erotic shifting in positions.

"Is it just me, or are the grunts and moans not sounding fight-y anymore?" Anya murmured.

"Not just you." Xander shuddered. He was trying to accept things, trying to be a good friend, and mostly hoping one morning Buffy'd wake up and move rapidly back to normal and away from pale and jerky. But until then, he didn't want to watch them getting semi-pelvic. He nudged Willow and Giles. "Do we have enough?" He mouthed. Giles considered for a minute and then nodded. Willow turned off the camera.

"You're clear." Giles shouted.

"Just a minute." Buffy's voice was tight and high pitched. Spike was sprawled on his back under her, and she was kneading his shirt. There was a subtle rocking of her hips as well.

"No. Now." Giles said firmly. The couple groaned and got up. Everyone tried to ignore the stiffness of Spike's gait as he moved towards them.If I see Riley anytime soon, I'll bash his bloody nose in, Giles thought angrily as he watched Buffy and Spike. _Bad enough to kill her memories, the young idiot killed off whatever controls her sex-drive. Or maybe- dear Lord- maybe it's just something about Spike. _

"I'll email Riley as soon as I get back to the dorms. And then there's a wicca group meeting I wanna check out. So don't panic if you call and I'm not home." Willow got into Xander and Anya's car.

"Call when you get in. Just leave a massage." Giles urged. "I'll sleep better."

"You sleep?" Xander scoffed.

"Well, I may not tonight. Depends on how Joyce reacts." Giles winced. Buffy clutched her head and Spike rubbed her arm.

"It'll be alright, Poppet. We'll explain everything. An' if it doesn't work out- we can go someplace else. I'll look after you."

"We all will." Willow reached out and took Buffy's hand. "It'll be okay."

"Everyone says that." Buffy laughed bitterly. "How is it _ever_ okay to walk up to your mother and say 'Hi, nice to _meet_ you?' I can't do this. I can't. It's too awful, it's too heartbreaking. Brain breaking." Buffy shook her head painfully. "Spike..."

"I know. I know." And he did. It literally did feel like their minds were fractured and splintered. As things healed, realities warred, past and present tried to blend until you just wanted to get away from everything, everyone...but what you knew was really true. "I think Slayer an' I need a night to ourselves before we deal with her mum." Spike spoke up. Buffy nodded gratefully.

"Buffy, the longer you put this off-" Giles warned, "the worse it will be."

"And what if I remember her over night, so at least I can have_ something_ to connect with her?" Buffy protested.

"Don't push her." Spike's eyes slitted dangerously.

"You can't put it off forever. You were the one who said that." Giles reminded her.

"I don't want to put it off forever. I want to put it off until tomorrow morning." Buffy wrapped her arms around herself. Thinking about confronting her mother, who she still had no memories of, had made her feel miserable. "I need to patrol." She said in a hollow voice. "Ha. I need to go kill things, it's my sacred duty. And then I need to go talk to my mother, who probably hates my sacred calling, but hey, that's working out for me right now, 'cause I don't even remember ever _seeing_ her, let alone telling her I'm some superpower girl." She shrugged out of Spike's embrace and pushed forward a step to Giles. "Can I just talk to her in the morning? Or don't slayers ever get a break?" She met Giles' eyes with tears in her own. "Do we just fight, and suffer, and die young? Do we get to do what we _want_ sometimes?"

Giles swallowed. "I know how much pain you're in, Dear, but-"

"No. You don't. There's only one person who does, and I need to be with him. I need a break from trying to be this girl, this friend, this Slayer, this daughter that I can't even remember!" Buffy pushed the heel of her hand angrily across her overflowing eyes. "I'm doing my best. But I'm not all better."

"I know. Of course you're not. Of course." Giles hesitantly reached for her, and she let him pat her shoulder. "Tomorrow morning I'll go with you and we'll explain to Joyce. You take tonight off. We' ll go home and fix up the couch so you can rest."

"I think we need someplace a little more private, no offense." Spike said softly.

"Oh, God, dude, this is no time to be thinking with your little head!" Xander, who'd been watching in aching silence, suddenly lost it.

"I'm not, you wanker! I think maybe Slayer'd like some time without an audience! She likes all of you, an' I'm not exactly hatin' you lot either, but you're still a reminder of a life we can't even fuckin' remember! Sometimes-" He lost his angry outburst and looked sadly at his girl, looking suddenly pale and tired, "- sometimes you just need a break from expectations."

"At least with Spike- we're in the same boat. We don't have any expectations for each other, we know we're both missing tons of pieces and what that feels like. Can you understand that?" Buffy pleaded softly.

"Where are you going to go?" Willow asked softly.

"I don't know. Someplace where they won't find us, where there's no one else around, not even a hotel where people we know might just pop in and we wouldn't recognize them." Buffy tiredly sagged her head into her hands. "I'm seriously considering that cave we hid out in." She heaved a morose sigh.

"I think we can do a bit better than that." Spike said thoughtfully. "What about that old mansion you showed us?"

Four heads jerked to look at him. "The m-mansion?" Willow winced.

"Not a good place." Xander shook his head.

"I was under the impression you didn't like the atmosphere of the mansion." Giles said quickly.

"I don't like the atmosphere of most places." Buffy confessed.

"It's like bein' in a funhouse. Everything looks like you should know it, but that's just an illusion." Spike explained. "I don't like the place, but I could use a little down time myself. Jus' me an' my girl."

"Who owns that place?" Buffy asked. "I mean, obviously, they don't live there, the place was kind of a mess, but they aren't going to come back anytime soon are they?"

"No." Giles answered the second part of the question. "They won't be back."

The unspoken questions and answers hung in the air, but the unfortunate group was getting used to that by now. "We'll do a quick sweep then." Spike said briskly, breaking the silence. "You three toddle off. Anya- you alright? Didn't give you the shakes, did I?"

"Oh, no. Well- a little, but only because I let myself play along. I love acting. The damsel in distress is one of my favorite roles, although usually I'm wearing-"

"We gotta go." Xander said abruptly. "We'll meet at Watcher central tomorrow night?"

"Uh- yes, fine." Giles agreed. The car screeched off and the remaining three exchanged a tired look.

"I guess we better do this." Buffy pulled a stake from the waistband of her jeans.

"It's all you can do, Slayer." Spike shoved his hands in his pockets and fell into step beside her. "Keep movin'. At least we're together."

"Then it'll be okay." Buffy gave him a sudden flash of a brilliant smile.

Behind them, the Watcher watched in silence.

"Maybe the lights are still in working order." Spike and Buffy parked the DeSoto among the overgrown trees and shrubs on the edge of the property and made their way to the decaying mansion.

"If not, we both see in the dark okay." Buffy shivered.

"You cold, Poppet?"

"Just tired." She said. "I'm sorry things are so up and down with me. I was all 'grrr sexy slayer' and then I went all 'scared, whiny girl'."

"Do you remember the poor sap who was cowerin' on the bathroom floor this afternoon and who then turned into Mr. Predator tonight?" Spike laughed. "This is us, Luv. Two for the price of one in both of us. William an' Spike, Buffy an' Slayer. Plus-" he shouldered open the creaking door, " we've got the unfortunate side effect of the past seepin' in to our new reality very slowly. Bloody annoyin', if you ask me."

"Very bloody annoying." Buffy grinned, and shut the door after them. "Hideout sweet hideout." She shivered again. "I don't like this place. I don't know why."

"Bad things happened here." Spike looked around the dark, cavernous front room. He rubbed his lower back suddenly, furiously wincing.

"What's wrong?" Buffy put her duffle bag down with an annoyed thud. Apparently. a week and a half ago she'd been living happily in the dorms with a nice home to go home to at her mother's. Now she lived out of a suitcase and had spent the week in a combination of caves, hotel rooms, in her mother's house as a fugitive, and now an abandoned mansion. She gave the bag a little kick.

"Just a twinge." Spike looked at her. "What's wrong with you, Slayer?"

"I had a house. A home. So did you. Now we have two bags and a lot of annoying crap we don't remember." She huffed.

"Still got your home." Spike reminded her. "Wherever we're together, that's gonna be home." In the dark, he still found her face easily, and stroked her cheeks with his hardened fingertips. "I've still got you. That means everything to me, Poppet."

"I know. It means everything to have you, too. I'm just so tired of being worried, and trying to do what we're supposed to do all the time. Being a slayer sucks."

"And a vampire isn't much better. 'Specially not a reformed one." Spike sighed.

They had come to an interior room with a large fireplace, and a broken coffee table. Wordlessly, they took in the scene, and then silently agreed to leave the area. The next room wasn't any better. A large bed, still made, was the only piece of furniture in a drafty room. Buffy's hand automatically reached to the left of the doorway and flipped a switch. With a snap, an overhead light came on.

"How'd I know...?" She trailed off.

"Been in here before?" Spike shrugged.

"But- _you_ lived here." She pointed out.

"Lived here with a group." He reminded her. "An' you an' me did plot an' plan. Maybe we planned in here."

"Then- why didn't _you_ reach for the light switch?" Buffy ghosted her hand down the side of the bed, a feeling gnawing at her, one of past happiness turned into sadness. Spike came beside her and ghosted his hand on the opposite side. Rage and jealousy snickered in his brain like a private joke that he wasn't allowed in on. "This wasn't my bed." He yanked his hand away.

"It isn't going to be ours now, either." Buffy took his hand. "Come on. There's got to be another room with a bed in a house this big."

"I'll sleep on the goddamn floor. I'm not sleepin' in that room." Spike said fiercely, tearing his hand away in anger. "Oh. Oh, Luv, I'm sorry. This house... this house is jus' as bad for you, I'm sure."

"I know. And I know all these heartbreaking things happened to both of us, and I know some of them happened here. But even Giles writing down everything doesn't really tell us what happened, you know? He wasn't here for some things, he had to listen to whatever I told him. Even if I read it, even if it was word for word- I don't remember how it felt."

"But you get these flashes?" Spike nodded empathetically. "Know you felt jealous or miserable, just can't remember why or how much?"

"Make it go away?" Buffy pleaded softly.

"We've been through worse." Spike comforted.

"I know. Still want it to go away." She bowed her head to Spike's chest.

"Come with me. We'll make everything go away. Everything but you an' me."

"We're survivors." Buffy nodded, setting her jaw.

"Tonight you an' I can jus' be a couple, comforting each other in some God forsaken dump. How's that, Poppet?" He smiled, face relaxing, trying to soothe her.

"I'd like that." Buffy's face relaxed in turn.

The couple moved through the house, heading to the second floor, which looked as though it has scarcely been used, dust and cobwebs lying in the corners, hanging from stucco ceilings. Most rooms were empty.

"Let's see if the water works, as well as the lights." Buffy hit another switch as she and Spike found a bathroom at the end of the hall. The lights guttered on, and then half of them blew out. "Good thing we have the candles that Giles sent."

"Good thing we didn't kill anything messily nasty tonight." Spike turned on the tap and the water sputtered out with a brown, rusty splatter.

"Leave it run, it'll clear. No one's been here for a long time." Buffy wandered to the last room that they hadn't checked yet. "Bingo. Bed."

"There's gotta be some sheets someplace." Spike wandered in another direction after looking at the simple, white sheeted bed. The bedding were practically gray with dust. "We'll use those to clean up the room." He gestured to the sheets, "An' well make this place livable for the night."

"Okay. Oh! Clean water! I'm going to turn on the tub, in case we want a bath."

"Ooh, a bath, not a shower. Livin' it up, aren't we?" He teased.

"There's no shower head, silly, it's a big old-fashioned tub in a big old fashioned house." She crossed her arms. For the first time in days she suddenly felt like she might fit in someplace again. With Spike, yes, but in another place as well. In a home. "Where are we going to live when we get married?" She called.

"Thought we'd get an apartment. OW!" Spike cried suddenly.

"What happened?"

"Soddin' shelf fell on my foot." Spike grumbled. "But I found some sheets."

"How are we gonna get an apartment?" Buffy asked suddenly.

"I'm gonna get a job. Don't worry." Spike came back down the hall. "What brought this conversation up? Not that I don't love thinkin' about you an' me in our own little place."

"I just liked this feeling. You and me working together on something domestic. Making the beds, cleaning up."

"Like your mum's house?" He began unmaking the bed.

"No. See, that place was already all set up. I like the idea of you and me making something new together. And this is the closest we've gotten to setting up house together." Buffy stuck her head out the door and Spike turned to face her at the same moment. "Even the bad places- you turn them into good places. I feel like maybe things are going to be okay."

"I told you. Things are going to be okay, as long as we're together."

Giles sat up groggily as the phone shrilled. "Oh bloody hell... Emergencies every night of the week." He grabbed his phone and mumbled into it. "Hello?"

"Giles? Is this a bad time?"

"Oh, no, Angel, call anytime, day or night." Giles grumbled bitterly.

"I wouldn't call, except, I'm a little worried. Um. Willy- you know him?"

"Yes, I know him." Giles sighed. "Why is this pertinent at- 1:45 in the morning? _Quarter of two in the morning_? Angel-"

"He called. Willy said a bunch of guys came in and told him I was back in town."

"Are you?" Giles blinked and tried to find his glasses.

"No! But lights are on in the house. You know. The mansion on Crawford Street." Angel said nervously. "That's why everyone in the Sunnydale underworld thinks I'm back."

"Angel, why is the electricity still on? You haven't lived there in months. Maybe they're mistaken, the demons who told Willy it was your old house."

"It's not a mistake. I keep getting final notices forwarded to me here, but Sunnydale Power and Water just keeps being nice and leaving them on. I never called and did anything about it." Angel sighed. "I gotta do that. But- um- in the meantime, could you go over and see what's going on? I don't want vamps setting up a nest for Buffy to deal with."

"It's not a nest. It's Spike."

"Spike's there? Get him out!" Angel demanded.

"You say the power and water are still on?" Giles sleepily realized that Spike and Buffy would have the basics for the evening.

"Yes, I guess so. But why does that matter? Spike doesn't need those things."

"I guess it doesn't. They'd be fine for what night, they've come through worse." Giles rolled over drowsily. "I'll have them out in the morning."

"Giles- Giles! What do you mean 'they'?"

Giles came fully, harshly awake. Dammit. Fatal error. "Uh..."

"Is Drusilla back?"

"Erm. No."

"So who is it?"

"Spike's latest lover, that's all."

"Oh. A vamp?"

"No. Not a vamp." Giles replied hurriedly. He didn't want Angel to storm up in a passion, thinking Spike was up to his old tricks. "They'll be gone by morning, I swear."

Angel's eyes narrowed suspiciously. He didn't like Giles abrupt change of tone. "How's Buffy?" He asked after a moment.

"Fine!" Giles yelped. "Just fine. Fine."

Angel's eyes shot open. The tone hadn't reverted to normal, if anything it had intensified. Something was up. And Buffy was involved. " Giles what aren't you telling me?"

"Oh drat. Someone's at the door. Regards to Cordelia." Giles hung up andp pressed a hand to his heart. "Oh lovely. That's all we need. A jealous, brooding vampire who can still maim people."

Angel stared at the phone, now disconnected. "Something's going on. I'm going over there." He slammed the phone down and grabbed his coat.

"We should get some sleep." Buffy looked across the neck deep water at Spike.

"I don't want to. Hot water helps the backache." He diddled his toes in the water, hitting a spot between her thighs. "Plus, I can do that in the tub."

"Your back always hurts here." Buffy mused, opening her legs wider. Spike moved closer, sending a splash of water over the side, and replacing his toe with his thumb. At his insistent probing, she draped one calf over the edge of the tub and regarded him with concern. "Did you realize that? Your back always hurts here?"

"Doesn't matter." Spike said quickly.

"I broke your back." Buffy said softly. "I read it. I pushed a pipe organ on you. Or I threw you into one. I don't remember the details, but an organ was involved."

"I deserved it. Well- to be stopped. I think snappin' a man's back in half was a bit much." Spike had known that from his reading, but he didn't want to dwell on it. He certainly didn't want Buffy to dwell on it. "Shouldn't have mentioned it." He mumbled.

"So why doesn't your back hurt around me?" Buffy looked at him guiltily. Spike's thumb stopped its gentle underwater circling on her nub.

"Because it doesn't matter, Luv. This place brings up old war wounds. But you-" He pulled her shoulders forward, bringing her to his lap. " You take my pain away."

"Take mine?" Buffy whispered, kissing him softly.

"Right now." Spike pulled her out of the water with a grunt.

"You hungry or anything?" Spike asked belatedly, carrying his slippery wet prize across the hallway.

"No. I'm just beat. I want to go to bed." Buffy replied unhesitatingly.

"I'll hold you. Keep the baddies away." Spike pressed a kiss to her forehead and deposited her on the small double bed, spartan in white sheets that needed an airing, but were not dusty and were serviceable.

"Oh, holding is good. Other things are even better." Buffy whispered. Spike went to his duster, which he'd thrown over the foot of the bed, and retrieved his lighter. He sat out several of the candles Giles had thoughtfully sent with them and arranged them in the windowless room. With a snap and click he lit the wicks and then shut off the guttering overhead lamp.

"This is cozy, yeah, Pet?" Spike eased into bed beside her. "Not much, but it's all we need, right?"

"There's you. And me. And a bed..." Buffy smiled enticingly. "Sounds perfect."

"Jus' like you. Perfect." Spike moved closer and caressed her breasts, and then trailed up to her throat, hooking one pale fingertip under the silver chain she wore. "You look good in nothing but my necklace."

"I'd look better in nothing but your ring. It bothers me that we can't find it." Buffy patted his hand as it tangled in the chain. "This has to come off again."

"Why?" Spike looked worriedly at her.

"It gets in the way." Buffy unhooked it, stretching her arms back slowly, raising her breasts and flaunting the fine arch of her neck.

"Oh, Poppet. You're not up for nibblin' on." Spike nuzzled her cleavage tenderly.

"But I am up for being super close to you. Including bonding like we did the other night, marking each other." Buffy's eyes pulled him in, drowning him. "What does this place make you feel?"

"I thought we didn't want to talk about those things." Spike said softly.

"Just tell me." Buffy whispered.

"I feel like my heart was ripped out in this house. Like I was helpless to do something. Somethin' that mattered." Spike looked away, but left his hand on her chest, comforted by the steady pulse of warm skin under his fingers.

"See? That's how I feel! Like this place cost me everything precious. And I don't exactly know why. I mean- I know it had to do with that guy, the other vampire. But it's more than that. This place hurt us." Buffy licked her lips. "Make it better?"

Spike stretched himself on top of her with swift reflexes, nose to nose, eyes unblinking and locked. "What can I do? I can't take that feelin' away, Luv."

"Yes, you can. You're the only one who can do this for me, with me. We can make the future so much better than the past."

Spike swallowed. "What kind of a future am I givin' you? Livin' in other people's houses, with other people's things?"

"So tell me how it will be. Tell me what Spike and Slayer would do, and we'll do it. Remember? You and me against the world?" She begged, hands suddenly around his shoulders, fingers clawing pleadingly.

Spike kissed her hard, with nearly bruising strength, his hands raking along her scalp. "You help me tell it, then, Slayer. You know I need you to take on the world, even if it's the one we're makin' up as we go along."

"Of course I'll help you." Buffy teased her hands along his spine, her feet curling against his, pulling him intimately close.

"Ahhh, Slayer." Spike lost his concentration as he felt her wetness opening on the underside of his shaft.

"First things first." Buffy smiled as his eyes closed blissfully.

"He found her ring. Or he bought her a new one. Somethin' prettier?"

"No. Just like the old one. _My_ ring, from _my_ lover." Buffy jutted her chin determinedly.

Spike beamed, proud of her preference. "Then we get our own little place. Which means I go to work."

"We both go to work."

"You can't work, Luv, you're at university."

"So?"

"You already have a job. You're a slayer."

"It doesn't pay anything. And I apparently quit awhile ago."

"But you still do the work. Maybe you ought to get Giles to put you in touch with those blokes. Tell 'em you'll go back to work officially if you get a salary?"

"That's a good idea! And I'll tell them if they don't I'll go kick their collective asses." Buffy winked. "What are you going to do?"

"Something that pays under the table, at night. Or from home. I seem to be pretty smart." He moved his mouth longingly across hers and down her neck. "I could do anything for you, Slayer. Look at what I've already done."

"We'll get a little one bedroom place. Or an efficiency. We won't need to make much."

"But all your pretty things?" Spike remembered all the paraphernalia he'd seen lying around her mum's house.

"I'll take what matters. We know better than ever that a lot of stuff is just stuff. Besides, my mother would probably keep my things for me until we could get a bigger place."

"You really wanna go through with this?" Spike's chest swelled with incredulous pride.

"Of course! Dumb vampire." She wrinkled her nose at him.

"What happened to sexy beast?" Spike teased.

"Sexy, silly beast. I want to go through with it." Her eyes clouded. "But you know that I might not live for us to ever get to a bigger place, or even to get to a wedding-"

"Quiet." Spike nipped her shoulder sharply, glaring up at her, head bowed. "You an' I are gonna make sure you outlive all the other slayers on record."

"But-"

"But nothin'. They didn't have what you have. Your own personal attack vamp. Something almost as good as a , Pet, with two people almost as powerful as one Slayer, we're bound to double your lifespan. We're talkin' at least forty, fifty."

"That's not much compared to the hundreds of years you could live." Buffy arched her hips up, drawing him in with a sweet, slick shift.

"It's a helluva lot longer compared to the twenty you were lookin' at. I just want to be with you for as long as we can, Sweetheart." Spike paused inside her, groaning softly.

"Spike. Oh, God yes."

"That good, Slayer?"

"Another twenty years in your arms sounds wonderful." Buffy blinked away happy tears. "We'll get married in the spring?"

"Even sooner if you'd like." Spike said quickly.

"Most guys run. They don't want to.. stay with me." Buffy's eyebrows drew together.

"Don't think of them. Think of me." Spike turned her head back to his own. "Think only of me." He ordered with impassioned intensity. "They were fools. Both of 'em. The ones who left, who ran an' left our hearts in pieces." He snarled low in the back of his throat. "They were fools. Didn't know what it means to love. Not to run scared, to stick it out, against everything, change an' accept whatever you need to to be together. That's _real_ love."

"That's us." Buffy dug her nails into his forearms as they rippled and flexed. He moved slowly, curving in and out of her, until she couldn't tell where he ended and she began. "True love isn't easy. It's messy." She gasped out through her haze of bliss.

"That's why you need tough ones like us, scrapy little fighters. We won't quit. Never give up. Not like them." He smiled down, panting slightly even though he didn't need to breathe, just with the effort of keeping up a slow and steady pace, perfectly timed to hers.

"You're only supposed to think of me, if I'm just supposed to think of you." Buffy chided, holding him tight.

"I know, but I jus' had to make a point, Poppet."

"Then I can say this. The other ones were too weak. Couldn't keep up with people like you and me."

"That's right. You an' I are meant to be. The only ones who could ever fit together, stay strong in this mess of a life we're thrown into."

"Just took a bigger mess to see it." Buffy realized.

"As long as we saw it, that's all that matters."

Angel arrived in Sunnydale about an hour before first light. He contemplated driving to Buffy's or Giles' before heading to Crawford Street, but thought better of it. He could handle Spike himself, and God knew he owed him one for the torture and pain he'd subjected him to during the Gem of Amara incident.

Angel parked his car in the drive, and looked around for the DeSoto. Not seeing it, he wondered if Spike had moved on already. But lights still burned in an upstairs room, the bathroom by the looks of it, so Angel marched ahead.

"Little blonde waste of space. Taking over the place like he owned it. Evil, murderous, bleached scrawny..." Angel's tirade lasted until the door was forced and he entered the ante room. His frustration was so great that he was actually vocalizing his normally silent brooding.

Angel paced around the downstairs slowly, frown deepening as each room revealed no trace of the spawn of his Childe. Something was wrong, and the feeling had grown the whole way to town. Now here, the place smelled wrong, felt wrong, and he couldn't place it. The mansion was always a confusing jumble of pain and want and regret. Buffy had slept beside him in the bed on the first floor, fought with him in the great room, killed him here, redeemed him here, loved him and forgave him here. And he'd left her, leaving from this place without even saying goodbye to the only woman he'd ever really loved. Some small part of him snidely commented that he loved his own self-sacrifice and suffering more than he loved the girl, that it was part of his motivation to leave. _You loved your quest for atonement more than you loved her. But this isn't about here. It's about Spike._

_Why would Spike ever even come back to this place? He had to remember what happened here. With Drusilla... and I. With Buffy. Not that it didn't serve him right, but why would he do this? Unless it was another one of his self-torturing jags after Drusilla left him._ Angel mounted the stairs, nose working and ears practically twitching. A heartbeat. The son of a bitch had a live human here. Probably terrified, probably been kept to feed on. His pace sped up, and he slammed open the first door he came to. Empty. With a suppressed roar of frustration, he continued his way down the hall.

Spike felt consciousness tugging at him, but he refused it admittance. He and Buffy had made love for hours, slowly, but passionately, heatedly, losing themselves in long drawn out climaxes and always talking. Talking endlessly about their future and their love. He didn't want to wake up and go back to the cruel, painful world where he and his lover were outsiders, even to their own minds.

However, Spike's sleep was shattered. "SPIKE!" Angel towered inside the bedroom door with a scowl of rage as it slammed back into the wall with enough force to crack the plaster.

"Bloody hell!" Spike shot up, eyes flaring and flashing.

"Spike, what the -" Angel's shout died away like someone had cut his vocal cords. The blonde figure beside Spike had sat up with a gasp, drawing a sheet to her naked body, fear in her eyes. "Buffy? _Buffy_?"

"Who the bloody hell are you?" Spike reached for his pants, stake inside the pocket, and Buffy reached for her duffle bag, fingers closing on the crossbow left on the top for quick access.

"What are you doing in here, you pervert? Don't you know how to knock?" Buffy demanded, drawing the sheet up even further.

"Don't- don't you know me? Buffy- it's Angel. Spike- Angel. Angelus." Angel forgot to be enraged in his puzzled state.

"Oh." Both of the pair relaxed.

"Oh? That's it, 'oh'?" Angel spread his hands in shock. Both of them had curiously blank, impassive faces, they didn't have any strong emotion at all. He expected grief or rage or even outright hatred. He wasn't prepared for a casual hello.

"What are you even doing here?" Buffy asked irritably. "I thought you didn't 'keep in touch'." She looked at him scornfully. _This is the guy I'm supposed to be pining for? Mr. Big and Barge On In? No thank you. He looks like he doesn't have a brain in his head. Of course, he might be looking like a complete ass because he doesn't know why I don't remember him. I am so not getting to that right now._

"I don't- we decided- I've been- the best thing..." Angel sputtered out a bunch of beginnings of explanations, and finally gave up on all of them. "Never mind me! Why the _hell _are you two in _bed_ together?" He cried in angry exasperation.

Buffy leaned closer to Spike, resting her head lazily on his arm, looking up at him with a bashful, blushing smile. Spike proudly put his arm possessively around her waist and kissed her head.

Spike met the widening eyes of the broader brunette vampire with a saucy, but smug smile."Guess you wouldn't know. Slayer an' I- we're engaged."

_To be continued..._


	12. Chapter 12

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Notes: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Dedicated to Lithium Reaper, Hannah the Bloody, DLillith21, ginar369,, Lil-Leti, and Little Missy123 _

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part XII

"What?" Angel paled- an impressive feat for him.

"We're getting married. Hitched. Tyin' the knot." Spike clarified, tugging on his pants. "D'you mind?"

Utterly flabbergasted, Angel automatically turned around, and then turned back, angrily. "No! You two can't possibly be engaged! Buffy, why would you- is this some kind of sick joke? To hurt me? Are you that mad at me?"

"Were you always this self-centered?" Buffy looked appalled. Spike yanked his jeans closed and glared at the intruder.

"Not to mention rude. It's the middle of the night." Spike snarled.

"Why are you two even talking to each other?" Angel screamed, hands to his head, before they curled into fists.

"We're getting married. We should talk." Buffy pointed out sensibly.

"You're not getting married!" Angel lashed out suddenly, rage overwhelming him, powerful right hook heading for Spike. Spike ducked and Buffy climbed out of bed, sheet draped around her, weapon in hand. "You cannot be getting married. There is no way someone like her would ever love something like you, Spike!" Angel plowed froward, pinning the smaller man to the wall in his fury.

Spike shoved him back, kneeing him in the stomach and ducking under his arm. "Get out of here, Slayer."

"No." Buffy leveled her crossbow with a calm eye, although her heart was beating rapidly. "Look, buddy, you better get out of here and get your hands off of him. Touch him again and you're dusty."

Angel fell back, more in surprise than fear. "Did- did you just threaten me?" He gaped at his former beloved.

"Damn straight." Buffy looked at him angrily.

"Don't push her. She's tough, my girl." Spike laughed softly, languidly strolling around the embodiment of the past come to haunt them. "So _you're_ Angel. The biggest, bloodiest fool in the world."

"Why are you speaking like that? Like you don't know me?" Angel growled. "What are you talking about? Is there an echo in here, I keep saying the same damn things!"

"Get dressed, Poppet." Spike called to Buffy as he tugged Angel bodily from the room, a stake against his back. "I'll show him out." He ignored the protesting snarls from Angel who was still too confused and pained to mount another attack.

"I'll help you." Buffy called, hurriedly yanking on some clothes.

"Spike, what did you do to her?" Angel asked over his shoulder

"What did _you _do to her? Broke her heart, left her on her own. Took her to bed once an' never again. Oh, I read all about you." Spike hissed, shoving him down the stairs.

"Someone cursed you, or something. Willow! A spell went wrong, didn't it? You lost your memories." Angel gasped in horrified realization.

"Not quite like that. But I reckon we're both glad not have you cluttering up our minds. Enough pain in there as it is."

"And you're only causing her more!" Angel's anger flared anew.

"I'll never hurt her." Spike spat, and the men began to tussle.

"Stop!" Buffy raced down the austere stone steps. "Stop!"

"Oh, thank God." Angel sighed in an undertone, looking at Buffy. "It wasn't permanent."

"Let me ask one question before he leaves." She came to a stop in front of the vampires.

"Buffy, I am_ not _leaving. Something is seriously wrong with you. Both of you." Angel twisted free from Spike's grasp but didn't approach her.

"You're not leaving, huh?" Buffy cocked her head. "See, that doesn't make sense. I've been reading about us. I thought we had this 'big love'. But we can't have had all that much. Because you weren't here, you aren't the one with me anymore." Buffy looked lovingly at Spike. Angel fought the urge to gag. "It doesn't really matter now, but I'm impatient to find out. In the books it doesn't go into detail. Why did you leave?"

Angel blinked back a sudden tear. "To give you a normal life. With someone you could go grow old with, have a family with."

Spike and Buffy exchanged a glance, Spike's scornful, Buffy's irritated. "Come on. The truth, guy. We're not big on the memories, but we didn't lose IQ points." Buffy demanded.

"That_ is _the truth!" Angel cried.

"Well, why the fuck would you do a half-arsed thing like that?" Spike lost it. "You know she can't have a soddin' _normal _life, she's the Slayer!"

"And you know I'm not going to grow old! Again- because I'm the _Slayer_. We don't live long." Buffy whispered the last words.

"Not without a bit of help, that is." Spike took her hand firmly. "If someone strong, fast, and able to kick the demon horde's ass back to hell, someone like, oh, I dunno, a _vampire_- the Slayer'd live twice as long!"

"You don't know anything about it, Spike. You don't even think." Angel laughed scornfully. "What kind of life could a vampire give her? Huh? I don't see a lot of sunny afternoons or picnics on the beach in your future."

"Um- excuse me?" Buffy put her hands on her hips and stared daggers at the brunette. "Who says I want that? I mean, yeah, both things are nice, but who says I want that instead of having someone I love? Pssht, I can have moonlight strolls and midnight snacks, screw the sunny afternoons and picnics." Buffy put her arms around Spike's neck, drawing him close. "When I picture my life- all I see is us. You and me."

"Slayer." Spike sighed, moving his head slowly to hers.

"You said the same thing to me once." Angel whispered softly.

The blonde pair froze, and Spike began to step away. Buffy held him fast. She looked deeply into Angel's eyes for a moment. "I guess you didn't listen. I guess you didn't care about what I wanted." She turned back to Spike and kissed him gently.

Silence held for a moment. "Okay. No. No, that's enough." Angel marched over and extended his hand to tear the two apart. They pushed his hand off as one. "Neither of you are thinking clearly. You hate each other. You've tried to kill one another."

"Did." Buffy corrected.

"Used to." Spike snapped.

"Fine, you made up, but why would you 'fall in love'?"

"Can you pick who you love?" Buffy demanded.

"You ought to try! I left so you could love someone normal, someone good for you!"

"Alright, you asked the wanker your question. I'm gonna take him down." Spike shoved Buffy back with one hand and coiled to spring.

"Just let him go." Buffy looked disgustedly at her former lover. "You left. And you're stupid! I was right not to waste anymore of my life trying to love you. You can't go around telling me what's right, making decisions for us. What the hell kind of boyfriend were you?"

"You did love me. I still-" Angel trailed off desperately. "It wasn't that I didn't love you..."

"You didn't love her enough." Spike stood between the two, sapphire eyes almost black with hate. "If you loved her- you wouldn't've run out on her."

"Fine! Fine, whatever, I'm wrong, I'm bad, I didn't love her enough, you were right not to love me. Fine. But you-" He pointed an accusing finger at Buffy, "do _not _love someone like _that._" The finger moved angrily to jab in Spike's chest.

Spike reached forward reflexively and snapped the finger with a snarl. Angel roared and vamped, eyes sparkling with amber rage. Spike slowly turned into his alter ego as well. "Don't you touch me, mate. Don't you touch me, an' don't you lay a finger on her."

"Buffy, you see what he can do!" Angel looked past Spike to meet her eyes.

"Yeah. I can do that, too." Buffy's aquiline brows arched and she tightened her fingers in a steel fist. "And I'm about to do it. Sounds like you're wrong about a lot of things. Especially about him. I can love Spike, and even if he wasn't right for me- which he _is_- you don't tell me who I can and can't love!" Buffy felt some unremembered ache stirring inside her, an old heartbreak stabbing at her. Her voice was soft and pained. "You did that before. Never do it again."

"Buffy-"

"Never. Do. It. Again." She broke off each word like a chill wind snapping branches in a storm.

Angel regrouped. He hadn't lived so long, both as good and evil, without learning how to pick his battles. He considered his situation. Two complete mental cases, with weapons, super strength, and an emotional rage strong enough to make the air sizzle. "You need help, Buffy. And I'm not leaving town until you get it."

"You're not the brightest, are you? Traded more on bulk than brains?" Spike laughed mockingly. "You fancy yourself her knight in shining armor, don't you?"

Angel cursed internally. Spike had always, _always_, had that knack for perception, and apparently he retained it, even with whatever was causing his strange amnesia. That was exactly how he liked to think of himself. Buffy's hero. Self-sacrificing and noble, the object of her maiden's prayer. Yeah, that whole maiden part hadn't worked out too well, but... "You don't know anything about me, Spike."

"I know you waltzed in here an' told the most powerful woman on earth that she needed help an' you were gonna get it for her. You ever think that maybe someone like Slayer would like a partner, not a nursemaid?"

"I-" Angel couldn't refute that. He didn't usually think of Buffy as a partner. He thought of her as someone fragile that needed him.

Buffy weighed in, advancing on Angel, backing him slowly to the door with the crossbow even with his sternum. "I do like to be taken care of, Spike. You know that." She said with a strangely calm smile on her face.

"Yeah. I do know, Poppet." Spike smiled easily, prowling behind her.

"But it's all about how the guy does it. I don't know what you used to do, Angel, but I know it wasn't really about me. I can tell that by how you treat me now. See, that's why Spike is the right choice. He loves me. He fights next to me. And he can make me feel like I'm the most precious, cherished woman who ever lived. But it isn't about what he wants to do. It's about what I _need_." Buffy's smile broadened as she realized just how true this statement was. "That's why I love him. That's why I'm going to be his wife. So that I can spend whatever time I have left returning the favor."

Angel found himself out in the courtyard at this point, where the first faint tinges of pink were streaking the sky as the sun rose. "If you could just remember." Angel looked nervously between the sky and Buffy. He'd risk his life for her a thousand times over. He wouldn't leave her side unless- oh. The crossbow jabbed him firmly in the area just above his heart.

"Our memories are coming back, Angel. You'd better not be around when they do."

"Best listen to the lady. I've seen her with that thing. She's a lethal shot, but a little quick on the trigger." Spike slid his hands possessively along her torso from behind.

"Stop." Buffy sighed, biting her lower lip.

Angel thought he saw the chance to strike a blow while she was distracted. Spike's eyes warned him otherwise. Angel grudgingly realized the two of them did seem to move well, as a fighting pair at least. "I'll be around, Buffy." He murmured, sidling to the door. "Spike- I'll be watching you." He warned, and he disappeared.

Buffy and Spike exchanged a glance. "Wow." Buffy rolled her eyes. "Over dramatic much?"

"Don't feel bad, Poppet. I'm sure mine was a real piece of work as well."

"So that's the good him. He's all...broody."

"Well, the bad him is a nutter, accordin' to all accounts. I was violent, but _he_ was _sick_. Liked to play with his food a little too much." Spike peered outside into the slowly lightening courtyard. He watched Angel's black convertible purr into the graying dawn, the hood rolling up. "Well, there goes the blast from the past. Away from us, at least for now. Should we go get a little more sleep, Luv?"

"I'm too upset to sleep." Buffy pouted.

"Should we just go to bed, then?" Spike winked.

"Is that all you think about?" Buffy teased, bad mood fading slightly.

"No." Spike pulled Buffy along, his gait rolling seductively as he worked himself back to the staircase. "But when I'm alone with you, I think of it quite a bit." He arched his scarred eyebrow with a sinful smile.

"But there's this big deal now... the vampire that barged in, yadda yadda."

"We'll barricade the door." Spike wheedled.

"Well... maybe I'm a_ little_ tired." She smirked.

"That's my girl."

"That's right." Buffy leaned forward and pecked his lips. "And don't you forget it. No matter what anyone says."

"Don't worry. Even with my brain fried, that's something I never forgot." Spike paused, head tilting slowly. "Y'know how we said we knew things, without knowin' 'em?"

"Yeah?"

"Must've know that." He smiled into her eyes. "Some part of me knew you were my girl." He murmured softly.

"Some part of me knew you were my guy." Buffy shook her head. "No. It's sweet, but, no. That doesn't make sense. We didn't like each other before."

"No, we didn't. But we kept comin' back to each other."

"No... you kept coming back to me." Buffy corrected, eyes twinkling suddenly.

"I must've known then. Even if you didn't. Came back to get you to fix my broken heart."

"And I needed you to fix mine. I guess I just didn't realize it."

"I_ am _the smart one." Spike teased.

"Hey!" Buffy jabbed his side. "You watch your mouth, Buster."

"Rather watch_ yours_, Slayer." He countered, and then turned and sprinted up the steps. With a semi- annoyed, semi- playful cry, Buffy tore after him.

"I'm still upset you know. There're big issues."

"There're always big issues!" Spike laughed. "But you an' I'll handle 'em. You an' me, Slayer. We can do anything."

"Someone had better be dead." Giles shouted at the insistent knocking, shoving his glasses on while trying to tie his robe. Neither worked well and it was a rumpled, half dressed figure that flung open the door and found a hulking, black coated man before him. "Oh. Someone is."

"Giles, something's wrong with Buffy!" Angel paused in the doorway, shrinking into the shadow it afforded.

"Yes, I know. Come in." Giles sighed and opened the door wider to allow his guest inside.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Angel cried.

"It's temporary. It goes away in three weeks. One and half now, give or take. Well, that is to say- her memory will begin to return much more quickly. It'll still take some time in order for the-"

"Stop talking. Please." Angel moaned. "Just tell me what happened."

"Just a moment." Giles rummaged in his weapons chest for a moment before facing Angel. With a fierce looking, sturdy crossbow in hand, Giles smiled tightly. "Would you like some tea? Or a whiskey?"

"It's five in the morning." Angel pointed out.

"Buffy and Spike are getting married. I'm the father of the bride, as it were. Now. Whiskey or tea?"

"I don't want a drink." Angel said in a heavily martyred tone.

"Suit yourself. I'm getting used to the fact."

"You're getting used to it? God, Giles! What happened?"

"I don't know if you've heard about it Angel, but we have these pesky little commandos in Sunnydale..."

"You're taking one hell of a risk, Rosenberg." Riley met Willow inside the Espresso Pump, as her email had implied, not stated,_ implied_. "I almost didn't come. Your email wasn't exactly straightforward."

"Yeah, well neither are you." Willow sipped her mocha and pretended to be engrossed in her textbook. "In my bag. Reach in when you get up."

"But I just got here." Riley protested.

"That's right. You stopped to say hi to the girl in your class that's cramming for finals, and then you left." She mumbled, barely moving her lips.

"You want me to reach in your bag?"

"It's right on the floor by your foot. Just take the envelope."

"What is it?" Riley reached down and kept a smile on his face, trying to look the part of a carefree jogger, stopping and chatting with an acquaintance.

"Proof that Spike isn't a chipped puppy." Willow grimaced.

"What?" Riley looked around as he gasped loudly. No one seemed to notice, they were all busy absorbing enough caffeine to wake up in their own world, much less give a damn about random strangers.

"We taped it for you, but- let's just say it's a good thing Spike wasn't hungry, only playful." Willow crossed her fingers inside her bulky sweatshirt sleeve.

"Did he- is he- is everyone okay?" Riley swallowed.

"Fine. Buffy loves a good brawl." Willow said staunchly, secretly wishing her friend didn't love it quite so much since losing her memory. Buffy and Spike's romance seemed to bring out the primal slayer side of Buffy at times, and while Willow found it interesting, it scared the pants off of her to know that kicking Spike's ass seemed directly correlated to Spike getting a piece of hers.

"Willow? Willow? Are you okay?" Riley touched her elbow lightly.

Willow's head snapped back into the present and away from worrying thoughts. Well, of the Spike and Buffy bedroom variety."Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Take the tape. Go." Willow nudged his shin with her foot. With a small sigh, Riley nodded, bent as if to tie his shoe, and retrieved the tape from Willow's bag. With deft hands he slid it into the waistband of his running sweats, tucking it into his weaponry belt as he did so.

"See you around. Good luck on finals." Riley said in a falsely hearty voice, and rose.

"Good luck to you, too." Willow said with a significant look, letting herself smile gratefully. Riley paused and returned the smile with a genuine one of his own. He nodded once, then turned and jogged out of the cafe.

Willow leaned back in the chair with a sigh of relief. She suddenly felt dead tired, and it had nothing to do with the earliness of the hour or how many late nights she'd been having. "One too many problems." She mumbled, closing her eyes wearily.

"Y-you okay?" A gentle voice made Willow's emerald eyes spring open.

"Huh? Oh! Yes. I'm fine. Just- tired." Willow babbled, turning to face the owner of the voice. "Hey- Tara, right?" Willow recognized the girl from the wicca meeting last night.

"Th-that's right." Tara seemed surprised and pleased that she'd been recognized. "You're W-Willow?"

"That's me." Willow stood up, gathering her books hastily, and pushing them into her bag. "So, um. I'm obsessive compulsive about studying and mochas. Why are you up at the dawn's early light?" Willow found it easy to talk to Tara. It was rare she met someone who seemed even shyer than herself, and someone interested in magic was doubly rare.

Tara blushed and shook her head before stammering out an incoherent little refusal. Willow tilted her head and gave her an encouraging smile. "I- I'm- there's a peace and calming spell." She mumbled finally, eyes sliding nervously to the floor.

"You actually do spells? I knew I liked you!" Willow cried, and touched her hand warmly. Tara gaped, then giggled. "That meeting last night..." She trailed off shaking her head.

"Oh, I know!" Tara said with surprising strength.

"What a joke! Buncha wanna blessed-be's." Willow muttered darkly, pursing her lips in a frown. Tara giggled again.

"So you practice, too?"

"I'm getting good. I mean, I think I am. I can do stuff." It was Willow's turn to be shy.

Tara seemed to be struggling with herself and needed a couple deep breaths before she could talk. "I'm going to g-go do the spell. J-just needed camomile." She held up her purchase from the cafe. "D-do you want to come?"

"Wow." Willow smiled. _Someone actually offering to do magic with me._ Her weariness was melting away. "That'd be awesome." Tara smiled, a soft, yet strangely wise, half-smile. That's the cutest smile I have ever seen in my life, Willow thought, and fell into step with the blonde. _Hey. Whoa. Did I just think of her like- no. Never mind. But that is one sweet smile... _

"And that's the end of it." Giles concluded the tragic tale. "As yet."

"Those sick bastards." Angel said for the tenth time during Giles' explanation of the Initiative and recent events.

"Indeed." Giles agreed for the tenth time.

"So what are we going to do about it?" Angel, always one for action, demanded.

"We've put the wheels in motion to get the operation investigated." Giles cautiously supplied. He didn't want to involve Angel in their lives again. His presence would only cause Buffy heartache of one kind or another.

"Huh? Oh. That's great, but what about Buffy and Spike?"

"I've told you, they'll heal. But since you're here, you could answer some questions about Spike for me. We can't fill in any gaps in his memory, of course, so if you-"

"No!" Angel rose in exasperation, and then turned hurt puppy dog eyes on Giles when the Englishman kept the crossbow trained on him. "Not about the memory! About _them_. Together." He glared.

"I've tried, Angel. I've made every reasonable objection, tried every tactic short of locking them up."

"So we'll lock them up. Spike anyway." Angel said viciously.

Giles slowly got to his feet. "That's your solution?"

"It won't be permanent. Just until she gets her memory back."

"And then what, Angel?" Giles' voice was soft and clipped. "I think she's fallen in love with him. It seems to be mutual."

"But when she remembers what he did..." Angel trailed off pointedly.

"She is aware of his past, at least what's been chronicled. She's giving him a second chance. She gave _you_ a second chance. After what _you _did." Giles lowered one shoulder of his bathrobe pointedly, showing a multitude of scars. Angel winced.

"I have a soul."

"You do indeed." Giles suddenly felt that a soul wasn't so valuable. Later he would realize it was paternal anger that fueled his scorn, but at the moment, his mouth emptied out all the tortured questions and thoughts of his heart. " Let us say we try to lock Spike away someplace. Buffy will find him."

"_I'll _take him. She couldn't get to him."

"So she searches for him fruitlessly. But knowing her, she does find him. She _will _find him. She fights for him. She succeeds in freeing him, and both of them run off together, realizing that they have no one to trust, no true friends. The world loses the Slayer, we lose Buffy."

"Giles, I won't let her win. This is too important. She'll just have to accept defeat that one time. It's _Spike_."

"Alright." Giles' voice continued to drop, silkily sliding into a sinister tone that Angel was too preoccupied to recognize. "Buffy loses. She'll have a broken heart. She'll be left alone and without her lover- a lover she will know she failed to save- for the third time in two years."

"It's for her own good." Angel whispered.

Giles paused before speaking. "Is it? What will you do, Angel, when her memory comes back? Say it comes back and she isn't truly in love with Spike, like I believe she is. What if she'd rather be with you, is still in love with you?"

"At least I'm not Spike." Angel muttered bitterly.

"No, you're not. You'll be with her, then? Mend her broken heart, love her as she deserves to be loved?"

"You know I can't do that! You know I want that, but I can't."

"I'm not speaking of physical love. I have no doubt Buffy would take a vow of chastity to be with you in a relationship. Or she would have before this."

"I still can't. I'm not good for her." Angel answered, heart breaking inside as he realized how true that was.

"No. You certainly aren't. You'd take what she loves and tear it from her, break her trust, and call it saving her. You'd remove the object of her affections in favor of memories of what she can never have, what you can't give her. Her life is hard enough." Giles' finger twitched on the trigger of his weapon, but he restrained himself.

"Giles, you're not thinking. Think about the alternative. Buffy alone, she'll get over it. Buffy with Spike-"

"Is happier. Is loved. Is protected and helped and gives a damn about her life! Without something to live for, she'd give up. That's why she's the best slayer, that's what will make her more of a legend than she already is."

"She'll have something to fight for, to live for. You guys, she loves you, you're her family!"

"Then we will not betray her. If we did, she would have nothing left. We won't do that." Giles replied firmly. "Get out, Angel."

"Giles, you don't want to do this. Don't make an enemy of me." His voice dropped into a raspy threat.

"So you'd fight and kill the people she loves, not just the vampire she wants to marry?" Giles laughed. "My, my Angelus, I didn't think you could coexist with a soul, but you've mastered it."

"Don't." Angel warned, eyes panicking, hating to be compared to his evil self.

"No, I will. Or do you pretend not to remember that I withstood you and all your tortures? All your pains. I'd do it again for her."

"I'm- I'm not saying that. I don't want to- I never would have hurt you. Not me." Angel swallowed.

"Angelus took away what she loved, her security, her peace of mind, chip by chip." Giles advanced, step by step, in time with his words, tapping the bow lightly on his palm. "You'll take her lover. You'll take her trust in everyone she knows. You'll take her sense of strength and success when you make it impossible to win. Or more likely, she will win, and what would you do then, Angel? Stake Spike right in front of her as she finally thinks she's saved the one thing she has left?" Giles' hazel eyes were marble hard and deadly. "Sounds like Angelus to me."

"No." He gasped, horrified. "I- I love her, I would never-" He broke off. He would. It wasn't true what Giles said. It couldn't be. But yet... The demon in him laughed contentedly. _Hello, Boyo. Miss me?_ _What fun we'll have again. Just let me out, soul or no soul, we can still paint this world red_. "No." Angel shook his head, blinking, hands raking his hair in confusion.

"Go back to LA. Save the souls who need you. Leave Buffy alone. I thought that was what the two of you agreed upon."

"I was only trying to protect her." Angel finally muttered in a fractured voice full of pain.

"Then work with your contacts in the big city to get this Initiative mess cleared up!" Giles cried. "Do something useful."

"Protecting Buffy is useful!" Angel said, offended.

"Yes, certainly. Except that she's not a little girl, Angel. She's the Slayer, and she's a woman. She's dealt with more in three years than most people do in a lifetime. I believe she'll let us know when she wishes to be 'protected'."

"Sometimes people don't know what's the best for them." Angel said softly.

"You certainly don't." Giles agreed with a bitter laugh.

"You're really getting on my nerves." Angel smiled slightly.

"Because I'm constantly right?"

"Yeah. No!" Angel looked abashed. "I used to intimidate people a little more." He confessed sheepishly.

"Angel, after the week I've had- I would be surprised if I felt intimidated by the devil himself."

"Now there's a bastard." Angel nodded, and Giles laughed again. Angel heaved a deep sigh. "Ahhh. It's _Spike_. It's just- ergh. _Spike_." Angel shook his head and smacked his lips as if swallowing something bitter.

"I agree. Or, I did."

"You don't think he changed, not really?" Angel scoffed.

"You've known him longer-"

"To my sorrow." Angel muttered under his breath.

"Do you think he can change for love?"

"He doesn't have a soul!"

"That isn't what I asked you." Giles said gently. "Stop thinking of him with all the hatred and see him with honest eyes for a moment. Look back over your life with him, see him with Drusilla. Did he change for love?"

"He was whatever she needed. Always." Angel was forced to admit. "Broken, raving, mentally ill or physically ill- he loved her. He tried to fix her, help her." He whispered.

"Fix the broken woman you created." Giles rubbed salt in the wound on purpose.

"_Angelus _created!" Angel corrected vehemently, guilt swallowing him.

"Spike tried to heal her. A vampire tries to heal another. Have you ever seen that?"

"Just once." Angel thought back to a young couple he'd met in Paris. The most truly in love devoted couple, as they had been in life, so they had been in death. "And maybe twice, if I think about Spike. But I refuse to think about Spike like that. He was always weak, soft..."

"He was loving. Without a soul." Giles corrected, realizing it himself. "Of course Angelus hated that, saw it as weak, tried to smash it and mock it. You didn't succeed." Giles felt a sudden gush of hope inside him. Maybe things were going to work out after all. "The man is stronger than you think. And he loves her. He's going to make her happy, Angel." Because Spike in love was a force to be reckoned with, he'd seen what lengths he went to for Drusilla. But more importantly, because Spike in love was true to his heart. He didn't mind changing, if he was truly loved, truly happy.

"Oh God. Not you too." Angel rubbed his face with an exhausted hand.

"Look at it this way. It'll eat you up inside. Your soul will be firmly in place. Just the thought of the two of them..." Giles patted Angel's shoulder.

"Yeah. Hey, the more suffering the better, right?" Angel laughed with a bitter sigh. "I'll tell them I'm going. I'll explain-"

"No. Just go."

"But-"

"Angel. You like the torturing. They don't. Just. Go." Giles demanded firmly, warningly.

Angel sighed again. "You'll tell her?"

"I will." Giles agreed. With a slow, heavy nod, Angel pulled his collar up over his face and headed out the door. He sprang from shadow to shadow until he reached the dark convertible and then screeched away.

Giles shut the door. "I'll tell her you left, you bloody pillock. I'll tell her I sorted you out like I should've done the first time. And I'll tell her what I think about Spike. Anything else, about what kind of man you are-" Giles climbed the stairs with a shake of his head, wondering if he'd actually get to sleep for more than three hours at a stretch, " I'll let her figure out herself."

"Feel better, Lamb?" Spike asked lazily.

"Much less likely to kill stuff." Buffy draped her leg over Spike's thigh, heel on his taut cheeks. "We didn't do our daily ritual." She yawned.

"Did." Spike flicked his tongue and licked his lips. "Twice, before an' after."

"Not that ritual." Buffy blushed and giggled. "What did you remember?"

"Ah." Spike shrugged. "Honestly, Poppet, nothin' seems that important next to what I do with you." He didn't want to tell her about remembering Harmony, and their fights, their cold, meaningless fucking, and their break up. All hazy and in flashes of annoyance and misery. He hadn't loved that girl. He'd hated her. Why would he ever have been with a creature like that? And in the back of it all was Buffy, this raging, seething, irrational need to taunt her. But not kill her. Not kill, not anymore. It was too much fun to be with her. He'd told himself he wanted to, he needed to, but he also had the nagging feeling that she was the most amazing, interesting thing he'd ever see. She was sport, entertainment, a good fight. One day she'd be his to take out, but not for awhile. Those thoughts tortured him, but no need to torture her with his past foolishness, not when he could see the truth now.

Buffy watched his eyes shift and flicker. "You don't want to tell me?"

"Not that I don't want to tell you. Just don't want to hurt you and I don't know quite what happened myself." Spike shrugged. Buffy opened her mouth to protest, but then she saw the genuine discomfort in his eyes. She slowly nodded, and he smiled his thanks."Someday, Luv. But not when we're still down in the mess, tryin' to crawl out. It was nothin' good that's for certain. But how about you? Anything interestin'?"

Buffy sighed. "More flashes. Fights. With you- in the daylight, that was odd. And this guy. Jerky dark haired guy. I was all soppy about him, but man, he was an ass." Buffy shook her head. "I can see stuff better. It's weird. When I remember it- it's like I'm looking back at it and I can see it, I know it happened, I know how I felt then- but now- now I'm starting to be objective I guess." She chewed her lip. "I wasn't like that a few days ago."

"I don't think we're exactly 'objective' ,Pet, not entirely." Spike stroked her hair back. "But we know what we want now. Know what's in our way, know what a mess it all is- makes you see the prize an' ignore the muck surrounding it." He kissed her forehead. "You are the prize. So all I can see is you, Slayer."

"All I want is you. They can't take that away. I won't let them, anyway. Not anyone." Buffy snuggled up closer to her intended, a frown crossing her petite face.

"Why the fresh frown, Poppet?" Spike murmured drowsily.

"Later on today we have to tell my mother."

"Ahh." Spike nodded in understanding."Not an easy thing."

"If Mr. Broody Split Personality is the only serious boyfriend I've ever had- oh God." Buffy closed her eyes and buried her face in her lover's chest. "She's not going to be wild about this."

"I'm sure your mum's perfectly reasonable an' she'll realize how right we are together. Can't do without you." Spike soothed.

"I can't do without you either." Buffy laughed softly. "But- uh- if I remember what I read, and I think someone might have told me this, too- my mom hit you on the head with an ax one time."

"I deserved it." Spike replied automatically. He nestled his sleepy sweetheart more firmly into embrace. "It's all in the past. Go to sleep, Poppet. Dream about the future for once."

"Spending it with you." Buffy murmured, and closed her eyes.

_To be continued..._

_Sorry for the short chapters and lack of updates, readers. Interesting things occurring over here that prevent me from writing when I want to._


	13. Chapter 13

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Notes: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Dedicated to Lithium Reaper, Hannah the Bloody, DLillith21, ginar369,, Lil-Leti, Captain Peroxide, Vera Snape-Evans, The Ship's Cat, McPastey, and Little Missy123 _

_Chapter with a lot of recap, folks. Just moving the story forward, hang on!_

_Thank you for your support! __**This story has been nominated at The Sunnydale Memorial Fanfiction Awards,**__ (located at /indexdothtml) in the following categories: _

_Best New Author, Best Drama, Best Pairing Conventional, Best Unfinished_

_**If you like it, please go vote for it!**_

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part XIII

Giles opened the door with a baleful look. "Oh. Good. You're not Angel." He stepped back to allow Xander and Anya inside.

"Angel! Angel?" Xander yelped and slammed the door shut. "What do you mean_ Angel_? Was he here? Does he know?"

"I mean Angel, and yes, he was here, and yes, he knows." Giles held up a hand, tired eyes blinking at his guests. "Before you hit any higher notes, Xander, he's not here anymore."

"And he's a good guy now, right?" Anya rubbed Xander's back as he collapsed heavily onto the couch. "He helped us at Thanksgiving."

"The term 'good guy' is relative when Buffy is concerned." Xander said shakily. "If he knew we were helping her stay with Spike- which, God help me, I guess we are, he'd have no trouble drinking a pint of X-positive."

"X for Xander." Anya shivered.

"Well, I wouldn't go that far." Giles didn't quite look at his young guests. Hadn't he made that very suggestion to Angel earlier, reminded him of how tenuous his grasp on 'good' was? That he was ruthless where Buffy was concerned and called him on his threatening behavior? "Can I get either of you some coffee?" He took a deep swallow from his own mug.

"Giles, there's probably more caffeine than blood in your blood." Xander took the older man's arm and led him to the couch. "You look beat, but you can't keep living on that stuff. You need sleep."

"I'd love to sleep." Giles laughed with a small snort. "If everyone would kindly stop barging in on me in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning."

"We can leave." Anya said brightly. "I really didn't want to help Buffy do her schoolwork anyway."

"He doesn't mean us, Ahn. Do you?" Xander asked.

"No, of course not." Giles sighed.

"We only came so early because we thought the Buffster would be over here already. You know, since she's got Mr. Flammable-in-Sunlight with her."

"I'm rather worried about them actually." Giles allowed Xander to pull the coffee cup from his hands. "It_ is_ light out..."

"You're sure Angel isn't in town anymore? What if he went after them?" Anya asked peering out the window, looking for the absent pair.

"Why was he even here? I thought you and Willow decided not to involve him?" Xander demanded.

"Oh, believe me- I didn't want to involve him." Giles grumbled. "And as for being concerned about Angel going after Buffy and Spike- I was at first." Giles smirked slightly and looked at the anxious couple in front of him. "But after a conversation with Angel around dawn- I think I have good cause_ not _to worry. Angel went to the mansion last night."

"How did he-"

"In a moment, Xander." Giles held up his hand. "The point being, Angel went to the house after having been tipped off that someone was on the property, and encountered our bride and groom to be. Who didn't recognize him. And apparently didn't care for him at all. Spike broke his finger and Buffy threatened to make him 'dusty'." Giles smiled contentedly, chortling quietly.

"She- what?" Xander gaped.

"That doesn't sound like Buffy." Anya frowned.

"But Buffy isn't acting like Buffy. For once- it's working in our favor." Giles sat up straighter.

"Not following you, G-Man." Xander shook his head.

"When Angelus was in control- Buffy couldn't stand up to him. Not until it was too late." Giles blinked and swallowed. "But right now- he came in with his usual 'I'll control the situation' attitude and of course, his normally warranted hatred of Spike. Buffy and Spike didn't take kindly to either. They don't remember him. He has no hold over them anymore. Buffy's free of the pain his memory causes her. At least for a little while."

Xander and Anya considered this. "She didn't remember him? Not at all?" Xander asked softly. "But they were so... She like-_ lived_ for him. She would have died for him. And when his soul wasn't wandering around loose, he was the same way. Wow."

"But you never really liked him." Anya blinked.

"Nope." Xander grinned widely suddenly. "And I'm lovin' this one side effect. Buffy stood up to that jerk. Good. Finally." Xander looked at Giles as he sat in his robe, hanging open at the neck. He saw the long scars that started at the top of the shoulder blade and ran down under the fabric. "I'm sorry it wasn't a lot sooner." His voice dropped.

"This is very private and emotionally damaging, I know." Anya clasped her hands and looked between the two men. "But- um- with all the not worrying about Buffy and Spike- they still aren't here. Standing up to Angel or not- they aren't invincible."

"No- but I think we're pretty close." Three heads turned to see Buffy entering Giles' apartment.

Buffy stood in the doorway as Spike, smoking under his black coat, blasted past her into the living room. "Sorry we didn't knock- but we had a little daylight issue." She waved a hand at her nearly ablaze lover.

"Mornin' all." Spike said with a casual flick of his duster as he popped out from under it. "So... what'd we miss?"

"I hear you had a visitor." Giles raised one eyebrow as he stood.

"Take it you had the same one, mate?" Spike returned the gesture, heading to the fridge. "Got some blood for your favorite vampire?"

"You seem awfully chipper after having a visit from Mr. Broody." Xander addressed Buffy.

"That is the perfect name for him. God, he's totally all self-absorbed! 'Buffy, I know what's best for you', 'Buffy, I left you but I still get to pick your lovers and control your future. Grrrr. Hate guys like that! Well- I do now, if I didn't before."

"Good thing I'm so flexible and accommodating isn't it, Slayer?" Spike teased.

"Flexible, yes..." Buffy returned the teasing, her voice dripping seduction.

"Oh dear Lord. It isn't even nine in the morning, can't you_ please_ control your hormones? Xander- I've changed my mind- give me back my coffee."

"Everyone stop! Sit down! You're all talking about everything else but what I really want to know, and no one is satisfying my curiosity! Tell me what happened with Angel, and why you're both so happy, and why you're both late, and what happened to bring Angel to town and how you got him to leave!" Anya demanded, sitting down on the couch with her arms crossed and angry huff of air passing through her shapely lips.

Buffy and Spike exchanged an amused look. "I knew I was gonna like her." Spike grinned and sat, Buffy curling automatically across his lap. "Alright. We've got some of the same questions. Let's sit down and take it piece by piece."

"The old Spike was _not_ this patient." Xander sat beside his angry girlfriend.

"I'm not patient. Gotta know stuff if you're gonna be prepared. An' besides-" Spike's gaze softened as he looked at the girl in his arms, "maybe I'm a little more- personable, now that I've got a wife to consider."

"Uggghhh. Just- talk about - other things. Don't say 'wife'." Xander shuddered, try though he might to overlook his gnawing feeling of unease when he saw the two of them together.

"Gotta put up with it." Buffy smiled and giggled once. "That word might come up a lot in the story."

"I thought you were getting used to it." Anya hissed.

"So did I." Xander mumbled. "Well- if by get used to it, you mean not vomiting."

Giles took the floor, speaking in a very exhausted voice. "Firstly, I love all of you very much."

"Aww, G-Man, you never-" Xander looked moved.

"Watcher, I'm speechless-" Spike snarked, but mildly.

"BUT-" Giles cut them off firmly, "if I don't get some sleep tonight, I'm personally going to throttle every single one of you. In addition to dealing with our current multitude of crises, I got a lovely little phone call from Angel at around two in the morning. Willy- that's the man who owns the demon friendly bar- took it upon himself to call LA after half of his idiotic, nosy patrons assumed Angel- or Angelus- was back in town when they saw lights on in the Crawford Street mansion."

"Bloody hell, does everyone know everything about people in this burg?" Spike looked horrified.

"Demons and vampires run a tightly knit chain. This is a hellmouth, it's rather like the hub of the demon world, and everyone with even a mild connection to the demon populace pays attention to what goes on here. Especially to the happenings involving notorious vampires like Angel and yourself." Giles said drily.

"Oh. Notorious, I quite like that." Spike smirked and preened.

"He called, caught me half asleep, I told him Spike was the one in the house. I must've said 'they' at some point, and to cover I said Spike was with his um- erm- current lover. I didn't want to implicate you, Buffy, but..." Giles sighed. "I don't know quite what I said or did to arouse his suspicions, or if he was just in the mood to go after Spike- you two have quite the vendetta, at least in Sunnydale." Giles rubbed his eyes tiredly, "For whatever the reason, he showed up in town. And then he showed up on my doorstep around dawn after seeing you two. Good Lord, was he in a temper."

"That leaves a blank to fill in." Anya prompted Spike and Buffy.

"He has a massive nerve, that guy! He didn't even knock, he just barged in, woke us up and of course, we didn't know who he was." Buffy leaned forward and spoke quickly. A small frown appeared between her brows. "Where's Willow? I'm used to- I mean- yeah, I guess I am used to spilling all the good stuff to her."

"That's right." Xander beamed. "And me, to a lesser, not so estrogen-soaked level. Don't worry, Wills has class, but she'll be here soon." Buffy grinned.

"Back to the wanker." Spike was bubbling over with his own annoyance at their uninvited guest. "He comes in and starts his poncey, pontificatin' lecture on how he left Buffy an' broke her heart- for her own good, the bastard- an' then starts in on how she couldn't love me, 'cause I'm not 'normal'."

"Like_ I'm_ normal." Buffy snorted. "And by the way- hello! Who died and made him Cupid? He can't tell me who to love! This is modern America, I'm emancipated. I vote! I do vote- don't I?"

"Uhhh." Giles and Xander exchanged a look. "Possibly?" Giles hazarded.

"Well, I will. Someday. Ooh, I'm going to need a new license and ID and everything once we get married. Oh, Spike, we need some kind of ID for you and -"

"Off topic!" Anya clapped her hands twice. "Back to the good parts! We'll forge whatever documents you need later, it won't be any trouble for Willow. So- how'd you get Angel to leave?"

"Slayer gave him a piece of her mind, first off. Told him in no uncertain terms she wasn't plannin' on livin' the textbook average life and she couldn't be forced into lovin' just anyone. Not once she's had herself some Spike, that is." Spike nipped her cheek and Buffy giggled and squirmed in his lap.

"Oh, barf." Xander muttered.

"Well, I might have talked him to a draw, but Spike did the heavy parts." Buffy praised her future groom adoringly. "He hauled him down the stairs and when he tried to lay a hand on us, Spike snapped his finger in half. Mm. So strong." Buffy lipped Spike's pale jawline as they looked at each other. Giles cleared his throat to remind them they weren't alone.

"He said wasn't givin' up, though. Said Slayer needed help an' he wasn't leavin' town 'til she got it."

"Which is what brought him over here in person." Giles rolled his eyes. "After I explained what had happened to you both, Angel- well- he wanted to separate you two until your memories returned." Giles said stiffly.

"Jerk!" Buffy spat. "Did you tell him we already chose each other, regardless of our memories?"

"Er- yes. Not in those exact words." Giles shrugged uncomfortably.

"What words exactly? Were you all masculine and threatening?" Anya asked, eyes lighting up hungrily. Giles winced further into his bathrobe but nodded.

"I reminded him that Buffy had given him a second chance, and he was in no position to judge if she chose to do the same for Spike. And then I pointed out exactly how cruel it would be to take away the one thing you really love and trust right now." Giles held Buffy's gaze. "I told him if he took Spike from you, he was no better than Angelus."

There was silence for a moment. "You really think that?" Xander asked hoarsely.

"I'm afraid I have incontrovertible evidence to the fact." Giles said gravely, now looking at Spike. The couple looked deeply moved and Giles felt himself getting warm around the ears. "Erm. I also told him that you would win, Buffy, if it came down to a fight between you and Angel, or you and Angelus."

"Did you tell him Slayer'd kick his ass?" Spike laughed with a bitter bark.

"Pretty much. But the key was being compared to Angelus. He hates to admit the similarities between them, and in truth, none of us ever liked to admit that we saw them or were aware of them -"

"I did!" Xander called out.

"But," Giles continued, ignoring Xander, "I could see it very clearly last night when he wanted to take Spike from you. Buffy, it sounds like you could see him in his true colors as well." He rose determinedly, "He is still planning to get you some help, Buffy, but not by taking control of your love life. He's working on the commando angle. Not to worry though, it has some benefit for him. A moment of pure happiness makes his soul vanish. He's bloody miserable right now, and that soul is locked in quite tightly. In a way, you've saved the world from a terrible evil, just by dating Spike." He looked at Buffy.

"Never thought I'd hear that." Spike mused.

"Never thought I'd say it." Giles said with a heavy sigh.

"Does that answer all your questions, Anya?" Buffy laughed.

"No. Why are you two so happy? You were crashing last night, all sad. Now you're happy- and you're late! And then there was the Angel invasion. Why the happy?"

Buffy and Spike exchanged a glance. "Uhhh- well- we're late 'cause we- ummm..." Buffy suddenly felt shy under the scrutiny of her friends.

"Right, got it, moving on!" Xander waved his hand frantically. His breakfast tried to make an unscheduled reappearance when he thought about Spike touching Buffy or more than touching- "I said move on!" He yelped when Spike smirked and licked his lips in Buffy's direction.

"But I want details!" Anya hissed.

"See me after, Pet." Spike winked.

"Just get to the reason why you're both seemingly recovered and in excellent spirits- the quick version, please- so we can get on with your schoolwork. I'd like to get all of it done so we can get over to see Joyce as soon as the gallery closes." Giles paled slightly. He was _not_ looking forward to talking to Buffy's mother. Forget about being prepared for Angel, he should pack a crossbow for _this_ meeting.

"The quick version, huh?" Spike looked at Buffy. "Lemme see. I love this woman. We're gettin' married, an' we spent last night seein' how nice it is to set up house together."

"And meeting Angel helped me realize something. I know, from everything you guys tried to tell me, and what you try _not _to tell me, and everything I read, that I loved him so, so much. That he broke my heart. But now I got to meet him- like meeting him for the first time. It wasn't a great circumstance or anything, but it was eye opening. I didn't like him like this. Even if I remember later how much I loved him, it's gonna be different, like I can see him for who he is. And I can see Spike for who he is, how he makes me feel, not just how he _made_ me feel. Everything's clear. So- um- God, ramble much?" Buffy laughed self-consciously suddenly. "But it made me sure. Really sure that Spike is the right guy, Angel isn't. Memories are not gonna win out over the future."

At this sobering, heartfelt statement, everyone in the room assumed grave, thoughtful expressions. Spike took Buffy's hand and squeezed it silently and she returned the gesture.

It completely shattered the moment when Willow burst into the room a few minutes later with a loud exclamation of "The eagle has been passed!"

"Congratulations?" Buffy said hesitantly to the panting redhead.

"I_ must _learn to lock that damn door." Giles mumbled.

"Will, it's "the eagle has landed". If you're gonna quote famous space stuff, do it right." Xander grinned.

"No, see, the 'eagle' was the evidence tape!" Willow hissed, looking around furtively. "And I passed it off! Riley has it." She looked eagerly around at her friends. "Was that why you were all sitting around with a major case of 'big serious face'? Because you wondered if I handed it off? Well, wonder no more. I did!"

"Well done, Willow." Giles patted her shoulder. "But no that is not what affected our -er- faces. We were just rehashing last night's events."

"_New_ events?" Willow asked worriedly.

"Angel showed up." Xander said with a grim smile. "Happy happy joy joy."

"Oh man..." Willow's eyes widened enormously.

"Do we have to listen to the whole story again?" Anya asked Giles.

"We'll just do the highlights." He sighed, and began his tale for the second time that morning.

A short time later (although not as short as Giles would have liked) found the group sprawled out across the living room, all with various assignments and text books in front of them, or in Willow's case, her laptop.

"Wills, not to put down my own amazing intellect and rugged survival skills, but you're really the one who should be doing the homework if we want Buffy to _pass_." Xander informed his best friend with an anxious grin.

"Just give me a couple more minutes." Willow bent over the keyboard and typed furiously. "We're gonna give those Initiative guys a three sided attack. Whatever Angel does, Riley's report and... a little bit of declassification." She smiled wickedly.

"What are you doing?" Buffy, easily distracted by her schoolwork at the best of times, was completely unfocused today and glad for an excuse to stop trying to figure out her history assignment.

"Well, I don't want to cause a national panic or a monster hunt, but it is time that some of the regular army knew what happened with this special mission, special secret branch stuff that's going so horribly wrong. So..." Willow hovered over a button, paling, "so I'm going to push send and Walsh's report on neuro tasers goes to the Pentagon's Listserve."

"P-pentagon?" Xander stuttered.

"Too much?" Willow asked quickly, almost hopefully.

"No." Spike said fiercely. "Maybe big, but not too much. We don't know what these blokes are gonna try next, but if they're willin' to muck about with demons and humans, whoever's runnin' the program doesn't have a conscience. And as a vampire sayin' that, you know it's bad."

"I'm hitting it." Willow closed her eyes, winced and pushed.

"May God have mercy on our souls." Xander deadpanned.

Dr. Maggie Walsh didn't believe in God. Unless she considered herself God. She pondered this as she left the lecture hall. To say one was God would doubtless say some very interesting things about one's superego and Id. Nonetheless- she was a Creator. A Builder. A tamer of man and demon. Yes, she was God. And now that she had begun pushing the limits of what she could do with what was already made- it was time to start making something new. Take the best of both man and demon, and remove the weaknesses. _All _weaknesses. Emotion would be the first to go.

This child would love her as others did not. As the son she should have had did not. Adam would be his name, a mockery of all the beginnings of life and humankind. He would be programmed to love- it would not be an emotion. It would be a command sequence.

Maggie walked quickly to her car. She would drive to the entrance of the lab she seldom used, not the one on campus, nor the one in the woods nearby the campus. She did not want to risk running into Riley Finn. The unprogrammable one. The one who was not at all devoid of emotion- just refused to yield anything more than respect to her. Something in the sweetness of his nature saw her for what she was.

Not that what she was was a bad thing, no, far from it, Maggie encouraged herself, shoving the sudden pang of bitter sadness away. Sometimes true genius, true strength came off as cold and unfeeling. No matter. Her brilliance would create something far more dutiful, far more suitable. Something perfect. Adam.

Maggie Walsh didn't see it or hear it- how could she? It didn't breathe, it didn't reflect in her rearview mirror, and it could remain perfectly still. Dead still.

Right up until its hand wrapped around her windpipe and a large body vaulted over the front seat from its hiding place on the rear floorboards, jerking the car off the road as she tried to scream.

Cold coffee eyes glowed menacingly at her from within an ice white face. The hand on her throat was iron and unbreakable, and when she managed to tase it with the tool she always had in her lab coat pocket, it merely roared and crushed the electric blue zap in his remaining powerful fist.

"I waited for hours for you. You'd think someone like yourself would have an escort to protect you from the creatures you hadn't gotten around to yet." The being snarled, low and deep, a mere hint of some transatlantic brogue attacking her ears the more angry he became. "Stop struggling! I'm not going to kill you - if you behave."

"Wh-what are you going to- do?" Walsh gasped through a nearly crushed windpipe.

"A little of what _you_ do." Angel smirked. He squeezed her throat, intending to make her pass out, not suffocate. As her eyes began to flutter, he hissed, " In case you're wondering why- this is for the woman I love."

As Walsh lost consciousness she had one strangely illogical thought, not even worrying for the fact that she might be killed or imprisoned, tortured, and at the very least was being strangled by a powerful vampire. No- as she blacked out she thought, _I knew love was nothing but trouble._

"This is the last assignment." Buffy put her head down wearily on Spike's shoulder and gave him her best pout. "I think I need some extra TLC tonight."

"Anything for the woman I love." Spike chuckled. "Giles, think the mansion'd be alright for another night if Mrs. Summers won't play ball?"

"I doubt you'll have trouble from Angel, and the locals won't go near the place after- well, the local won't go near the place."

"Not worried about the locals. Slayer an' I can take 'em. But I didn't fancy dealin' with He of the Big Forehead two nights in a row."

"We can deal with him, too. I don't love him. I love you. I only, only will ever love you." Buffy reassured.

"My girl. That's my beautiful Slayer." Spike pulled her into his arms and swung her around, as they kissed deeply, lost in each other.

Xander didn't know why he did it, why he suddenly opened his big mouth. Buffy wasn't exactly his Buffster just now, and she was so accepting of Spike, all of Spike. But the more deeply they kissed, the more both of them seemed to fall into something unnatural, something darker, that he didn't like. Spike's brow slowly ridged, and Buffy's mouth tightened as if she was biting his raked. Low growls sounded.

If Xander had really thought about it, he would have realized that he and Anya made similar noises, grunts and deep animalistic sounds when they were really letting go. But he didn't see that. He saw a vampire kissing Buffy, who wasn't in her right mind. Buffy was being taken advantage of, and yet she didn't even know it.

"Buffy, you can't really- you can't." Xander blurted, shocking even himself.

"Huh?" Buffy came away form Spike's mouth slowly, a trickle of blood on her lip.

"Buffy, you can't love him. I know you do, but- but when you're back to normal..."

"Xander! I thought you got this!" Buffy glared. "And normal? There will never be normal, so I might as well enjoy love- 'normal' or not."

"I'm trying to get it, Buff, but- but it's a vampire, and you're a slayer, and when that kicks back in all the way..." Xander sounded truly miserable, but he felt the words dragging from him. Like he was witnessing a mistake starting all over again. He tried to help, he tried to listen, tried to play along, even talked himself into believing he was okay with it- until he saw those fangs sinking into her mouth. "Buffy, you can't love him. He's a vampire, and before you throw Anya into this, she's an EX-demon, and Spike is still a vampire. And there is no such thing as an ex-vampire, even if he isn't hurting anyone." Xander explained desperately.

"I loved Angel! Angel was a vampire is still a vampire." Buffy exclaimed, backing into Spike's arms, eyes wide with shock at Xander's sudden statements.

"Angel had a soul!"

"I _have_ a soul, dammit! I can love an' feel an' think! I'm not some pond scum, I'm an unlivin', lovin' man.." Spike spat, arm protectively touching Buffy's shoulders.

"That's debatable." Xander looked at his shoes. Everyone was looking anxiously around.

"The pond scum part isn't true." Willow said gently, "but Spike- the soul part... that is kinda real."

"I'm sure- I'm sure this is just Xander's love for you, his protectiveness." Giles interposed quickly. "Just one more worry he has-"

"Oh for bloody hell's sake! I don't give a damn about the reasoning!" Spike's eyes flared. "Fine! You say I don't have a soul, give me one. I read. You gave this Angel prat back his soul. You've got the mojo, Red. Give me one, if it's so soddin' important!"

Willow gulped. "It was a curse. One moment of true happiness and it's gone, Spike. I can't- that wouldn't work."

Buffy raised her voice a fraction and spoke sternly. "NO! I don't want him like that. I want him like he is." She glared around the room, finally turning to her fiancé. "Spike- I love you like this. You're the man in control of the monster, soul or not. You're what I want. I don't want that other man anymore. I don't want anyone else."

Spike paused before he spoke, overwhelmed by the tears in her eyes and the pain in the eyes of her friends. "You heard her. And it doesn't matter what the rest of you want, because I'd choose this girl over the whole rest of the world, an' she feels the same. Don't you, Slayer?" Spike challenged.

"I do. I don't want to lose you. I know I love you all. But don't force me to do this to him. You gave Angel a second chance, right? From what I read? Couldn't you give Spike one?" She allowed herself to pleased, to speak to with the dimly felt friendship that lurked in the dusty corners of her mind.

"We gave him the second chance because he had a SOUL!" Xander stepped forward, reaching for Buffy's hands, only to find them hastily withdrawn.

Spike snorted in exasperation. "Fine! Fine, give me the soul. If it matters so much." His eyes drifted across the face he loved, the wisps of blonde hair, the kiss swollen lips and sparkling green eyes. The girl. The woman. The legendary match for him. "Give me the soul, but wait until Slayer's gone."

"Well, how the hell would that work?" Xander demanded. "I'm worried about now, with her, not without her."

"You'll have to wait. 'Cause of the bit about losin' my soul if I'm ever purely happy. Without her, I could never have one moment of true happiness." Spike tangled his fingers in her hair and Buffy's head dropped to his shoulder.

Anya slapped Xander on the shoulder with a loud sniffle. "Are you people made of stone? I'm crying, and I pretty much hate all men! Let him alone, geez! Leave them both alone!"

"We cannot let him alone, Anya, as much as we may want to. Without a soul-" Giles began to explain Xander's viewpoint, although he himself was firmly-if unbelievably- in favor of their union on the grounds that he could recognize true love when he saw it.

"No! He's still the one I want. So get over yourselves." Buffy's head unslumped, and her eyes were fire and ice.

"She's a tough bird. I wouldn't push her." Spike smiled softly.

Willow chewed her lip thoughtfully, nervously twisting her fingers. "Um. I bet there's some way to take out that line. I mean- it's only one little line, the moment of true happiness. What if I just took it out?"

"Can you do that?" Xander asked.

"That would be so dangerous..." Giles put his hand to his chest. "Especially for someone with a- a- history of interesting spell side effects."

"It doesn't matter." Anya sang under her breath. "There's always one last ditch effort for common sense, but the heart always wins." She gave Xander a sudden blushing smile. "Believe me. I know."

"I don't want to make anyone unhappy. God, I just didn't want you to get hurt, Buff..." Xander shook his head. "Maybe knowing Angel was around did it. Maybe I'm just used to being your sidekick and I always watch your back. I don't know." He raked his hands through his short dark hair.

Buffy saw the pain in his eyes, the concern in Giles', the support in Anya's, and the hope and secret knowing in Willow's. Mostly, she saw the love and the unquestioning dedication in Spike's. They'd be together. Always. No matter what. No matter who. "Tell you what, guys. You give us six months together. if you can't accept him- us- without the soul, you can try to give him one. But whether you do or you don't, I made my choice." Her seriousness suddenly melted and she fixed Xander with a half grin. "And you know I always get my way in the end, even if it's dangerous and stupid, right,- _Xan_?"

Xander grinned back, equally lopsided, before he felt himself suddenly engulfed in a petite but crushing hug. "You remember me?" He breathed, hoping against hope.

"Some. But I _know _you more. You never like my boyfriends, do you?" Buffy whispered.

"This is true." Xander sighed.

"And you always act like a big stupid poop head 'cause you love me, don't you?"

"This is true." He repeated.

"I still do what I want- and you still have my back." Buffy stepped back and looked around the small circle. "All of you do." She blinked, eyes suddenly flooding with a thousand flashes of memory, none of them clear, but all of them true.

"We're Scoobies. It's what we do." Willow shrugged.

"This is very touchin'." Spike's voice was discordant in the soft atmosphere of rekindling friendship. "Can I ask one thing before you all start to bawl?"

"He's still an can only change so much for love, I suppose." Giles mumbled, patting Buffy's shoulder. "What is it, Spike?"

"Is this the Scoobies' Last Stand? Are there gonna be any more ugly little objections to me an' my Slayer walkin' down the aisle, or can we get past that part? Ah-" He raised his hand to quiet Xander. "I mean properly past it, 'cause I'm bloody sick of gettin' sudden jolts of unpleasantness. Can't take it on top of everythin' else, an' neither can Slayer."

The group exchanged a look. Anya swatted Xander forcefully on the shoulder and he rolled his eyes.

"There will be no more objections. None. From any of us." Giles said sternly.

"Promise?"

"Pinky swear." Willow held out her hand and Buffy laughed and hooked their little fingers together. "That's like a blood oath." Willow giggled.

"Bloody hell." Spike grumbled.

"We pledge our support- strange though it may be, it is the right thing." Giles inclined his head to Buffy, then Spike.

"We always have to have your back. So yeah. I guess we're all with you on this." Xander agreed.

"I liked the idea first, so don't look at me!" Anya exclaimed.

There was some general relieved laughter, and Buffy relaxed. Then stiffened. "Oh no."

"What is it, Poppet?" Spike asked quickly.

"One more person to deal with." She looked at him with a forced smile.

"Right. Joyce should be home soon." Giles steeled himself.

"I have to go." Xander said instantly.

"I have to turn your assignments in!" Willow piled books and papers haphazardly into her arms.

"I thought you guys had my back!" Buffy teased, even though they'd already discussed that only Spike, Giles, and she would confront her mother.

"Oh we do." Anya pulled on her sweater and made for the front door. "For all stupid, brave things you do."

"So why not this?" Spike demanded of Anya, the one he liked the best by far, who he knew would give him a straight answer. She didn't disappoint.

"We said stupid and brave. Not suicidal." Anya waved cheerily over her shoulder as she left. "See you tomorrow if you're not dead."

"Bloody hell." Spike said again.

"Is that all you say?" Buffy clutched his hand.

"Oh believe me." Giles polished his glasses. "It fits."

"Well then... um. Let's go meet my mom." Buffy tried to force the bleakness from her voice.

"I know it's hard for you, Luv." Spike comforted.

Giles chuckled. "Oi, mate!" Spike hissed at him. "Not a good time!"

"No, it's not, I know. Dear Lord. I don't mean to make light. But Buffy, Dear- I know this hard for you, but if you'd like to get a little perspective, make yourself feel a little bit better, think of it this way. Spike's about to meet his _mother-in-law_." Giles chuckled again and headed upstairs to put on some more formal attire, suitable for explaining things to Joyce.

Spike paled and Buffy rubbed his arm. "Don't tell me that worries you, Baby. You and me can take on anything, take on the whole world if we want, remember?"

"Yeah. But- uh- we never mentioned mother-in-laws." Spike mumbled.

"Be brave. I'll reward you later." Buffy winked.

"Right." Spike squared his shoulders, then threw his head back and shouted up the stairs. "Gi-iles! Can we pick up some flowers on the way?"

_To be continued..._


	14. Chapter 14

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Notes: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Dedicated to Lithium Reaper, DLillith21, ginar369,, Lil-Leti, Captain Peroxide, Vera Snape-Evans, Arshes13, kim kelly, Good for the Soul,The Ship's Cat, McPastey, and Little Missy123 _

_Thank you for your support! __**This story has been nominated at The Sunnydale Memorial Fanfiction Awards,**__ (located at /indexdothtml) in the following categories: _

_Best New Author, Best Drama, Best Pairing Conventional, Best Unfinished_

_**If you like it, please go vote for it!**_

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part XIV

"I don't know what to say. How the _hell _am I supposed to know what to say?" Buffy hissed in an emotional panic as she, Spike, and Giles walked up the sidewalk in front of her house. "I mean- this is so wrong!" Buffy suddenly ground to a halt and yanked on both of her companions' sleeves. "What if she doesn't believe me? What if- oh God- what if she thinks I took drugs, like that ER doctor kept asking me?" She felt ready to sob. She should not be going through this, no one should go through the torture of spending a lifetime with someone and then waking up one day and not being able to remember anything about them. The more she focused on the unfairness of the situation, the more she felt her anger rise, and her overall adrenaline rush.

"She will think no such thing." Giles placated.

"I know it's rocky, Poppet, but she's your mum. She'll want to help you more than anyone." Spike soothed.

"Really? Is she really like that, because I read stuff about the two of us, and our relationship is kinda- messy." Buffy put her hands to her head. "And I don't even remember any of it! And I messed up my hair now! Dammit! Dammit, I have to look perfect!" Buffy balled her fists and tried to straighten her hair simultaneously.

"For God's sake, Slayer." Spike grabbed her hands and forced them to her sides and then took over arranging her hair. "She won't care what you look like, stop fussin'."

"I'm sure you'll do just fine." Giles said lamely. "Your mother loves you fiercely." _And she also told you to get out and never come back once. She also tried to burn you at the stake once- although that was spell induced. She also made your sacred duty a living hell to try to complete for three years, and never missed an opportunity to tell you that you didn't meet her expectations._ Giles shoved these thoughts down, knowing they were counterproductive. "Joyce may not have made things easy for you, Buffy, but since she has known about your calling, she's tried to understand. She's brave and she'd do anything for you. We'll get through this."

"She's going to be so upset." Buffy murmured after a moment of silence, green eyes liquefying.

"I know, Poppet." Spike whispered in her hair. "But this isn't your fault."

"It feels like my fault. Like I'm disappointing her-again." Buffy looked mournfully at Giles. "Do I- I mean, did I disappoint her a lot? I-is that why I feel so guilty?"

"I can honestly say that you've never done anything that she has the right to make you feel guilty about." Giles answered carefully. Spike shot him a look. _Dammit. He sees through that. Nothing she did should have disappointed her mother- but that wasn't to say that it hadn't. Dear Lord..._"You've always done your very best, unorthodox though it might have been." He tried to smile encouragingly.

"I'm going to hyperventilate." Buffy looked between the two men, horrified. "Or faint. Or throw up. What if she blames me for this? What if she won't listen? What if she won't forgive me?"

"Then we walk out of here 'til she comes to her bloody senses!" Spike hissed, eyes glowing in rage. "Blame you? Forgive you? You didn't do a damn thing wrong! Nothin', an' if she can't see that pretty damn quick, she's not as smart as I think she is to have a daughter like you, Slayer. She has nothin' to forgive, an' if there's anyone to blame, it's me. I dragged you out there that night. This is all-"

"The _Initiative's_ fault." Giles snapped the words off. "Stop berating, stop fretting, and go ring the bloody doorbell!"

"You're right. You're right, we can do this." Buffy breathed in deeply and grabbed Spike's hand. "We can do anything."

"That's right, Luv." Spike brushed his lips quickly across the back of the hand wrapped in his.

"Are you sure you want to hold his hand?" Giles asked hesitantly.

Buffy looked at the man beside her. The only thing she knew she could one hundred percent rely on, strange though it was. "Yes. Yes, I'm sure." Spike preened and then tried to look carelessly confident though his fingers gripped hers harder.

"Right. In we go then." Giles squared his shoulders and wished he'd brought a flask. He found himself thinking, as he so often had when he followed Buffy into battles of one kind or another, the famous lines of poetry,_ "Ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die"._ _I wonder if anyone in the Light Brigade was a Watcher? Probably not._ Buffy rang the doorbell and he felt his stomach drop to his knees._ "Into the jaws of Death,_

_Into the mouth of Hell, Rode the six hundred." Lucky bastards,with a force of six hundred. Why is it always just a handful when you _literally_ work on the mouth of Hell?_

"In we go." Buffy agreed grimly, and pushed the doorbell.

In a moment, the trio heard soft footfalls inside the house. "Hi, Sweetie!"Joyce opened the door, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. "And- Spike? Buffy-why is Spike here?" Joyce's eyes widened and she stepped forward protectively.

Gotta admire that, Spike thought wonderingly. She knows who an' what I am, an' she steps up, not back. "I- uh- I'm helpin' Buffy with somethin' Mrs. Summers." He answered quickly, as Buffy seemed unable to speak.

"Oh?" Joyce didn't budge. "Is this like last time, when I invited you in and made you hot cocoa and listened to your broken hearted moaning, only to find out you had kidnapped Willow and Xander?" Joyce glared, and seemingly to see Giles for the first time, she relaxed slightly. "Oh. Hello, Mr. Giles. If you're here, I guess Spike must be on our side this time." She opened the door wider, giving Spike a dubious smile. "I invite you in."

"Thank you." Buffy and Spike replied automatically.

Joyce gave Buffy a strange look. Her daughter was just staring at her- utterly silent. Eyes wide and watchful. "Buffy? Honey, what's going on?"

"Mom." Buffy began and got no further. "Mom- it's so good to see you." She stood uncertainly just inside the door. With a roll of his eyes, Spike gave her a soft shove and she faltered a step or two into Joyce's arms.

"Oh! God, Honey!" Joyce half laughed, half exclaimed. "Easy, Sweetie, you're stronger than you look." Joyce patted her back and looked over her daughter's shoulder, eyebrows raised in silent demand, focused on Giles. He polished his glasses immediately and then straightened his tie.

"I'm so glad to see you." Buffy whispered hoarsely.

"You know, if you'd ever come home from that dorm..." Joyce chided gently. With a shake of her head, she pried Buffy loose and gave her a long appraising stare. "Baby, you're crying! Oh no. It's bad, isn't it? The last time you and Spike worked together- oh no, it's that Angel again!" Joyce's eyes went from soft and maternal to lightening angry. "What does it take for that boy to leave you alone?"

"It isn't Angel." Giles stepped in.

"I'm workin' with Slayer full time now." Spike volunteered. Buffy took his hand again and Joyce winced and shook her head, eyes narrowing.

"Buffy- tell me you're not involved with-" Joyce swallowed and sighed._ Don't jump to conclusions. Yet._ "Tell me what's going on." She pointed sternly to the dining room table and surrounding chairs.

"I knew we shoulda stopped for flowers, dead tip off or not." Spike mumbled in Buffy's ear.

"Shut up." Giles hissed at both of them. "Just tell her the basic facts."

"Easy for you to say!" Buffy snapped, and turned grieving eyes to her mother. "Um. Mom." She sat, and as one, the men in her life sat with her. Joyce stood, arms crossed. Buffy felt a wave of guilt and nausea sweep over her. "Could you sit down?"

"Is this news bad enough that I_ need _to sit down?" Joyce challenged, a shakiness in her voice.

"Yes." Buffy whispered, as Giles spoke over her in a mildly annoyed voice,

"For God's sake, Joyce, sit down. You're not the lord high interrogator. Buffy needs you to listen and try to be understanding."

There was a brief glaring match, and Joyce sat finally. "Go on, Dear." Giles urged Buffy gently, patting her arm. Joyce swallowed the jealousy that rose in her throat.

_My child spends more time with some old man, and now some dead monster than she does with me._

"Well, it sounds kinda weird, but-uh-I have amnesia. Mom." Buffy tacked on the last word nervously.

"Oh, Buffy! Did you get hit on the head? Were you slaying? Were you listening to Mr. Giles?" Joyce clasped Buffy's hand as it rested on the table.

"I think so?" Buffy looked at Giles, who nodded. "Yeah I listened. And, yeah, I kinda got hit on the head. Spike, too."

"You both have amnesia? Is that why you're working together?"

"No!" Spike declared hastily. "I've had a change of heart. More like a change of 'mind', I reckon, but..." Spike looked with barely concealed adoration at Buffy, "Wherever Slayer goes, I go."

Joyce's eyes narrowed. "You obviously know you're the slayer. And you know who and what Spike is. You're here with Mr. Giles. How exactly do you have amnesia?"

"That's er- rather difficult to explain." Giles cleared his throat, fingers again fussing with the knot of his tie.

"Oh, don't you even try that." Joyce laughed hollowly. "I've had way too many things 'explained' to me in the last year and a half. _What happened to my daughter_?"

All eyes swiveled to Giles. As the only participant in the drama that had an unaltered memory and had been present for most of it, he was saddled with the retelling. "I'll ask you to be calm and not interrupt. It's a difficult thing to relate even without that." Giles nodded stiffly.

Joyce snorted. Buffy made a similar snort, and Spike looked at the two women, realizing how very alike they were, in little ways. Brave, stepping up in the face of what scared them, protective of loved ones, and both quick to show their displeasure.

"Yeah. Good luck with the not interruptin' part." Spike muttered sarcastically, and lounged back in his chair. Giles sighed.

"There is an organized force of demon hunters in town."

"About time." Joyce said immediately.

"Told ya'," Spike snarked under his breath.

"No! Not good!" Buffy interjected. "They're not killing the demons, they're doing experiments on them. Erasing their minds- so they can get -u- reprogrammed."

Joyce's eyes widened. "Reprogrammed?"

"That's what they call it." Spike growled. "Better name for it is torture. First, they capture you an' starve you, put you in electric cages, cut your brain open an' stick a little chip in that means you can't hurt any living thing- also means you can't feed yourself. They're leavin' you to starve to death. Only you can't die."

Joyce found herself reaching for his hand, moved by the agony on his face, only to find Buffy's hand had beaten her to it. "That sounds terrible. But- but I guess I can see why they want to get rid of demons. They kill humans. Only- why aren't they doing that?" Joyce's brows knit together in concern.

"Because they have another plan." Buffy's eyes flashed. "Erase minds, reprogram them to do whatever you want, good or bad,so you can create an army of super strong, obedient demons. Welcome to the newest line of mega soldiers."

"Oh. My. God." Joyce gasped out. "So- Spike got caught?"

"An' escaped. Then I found Slayer."

"And I followed Spike back to the area where he escaped from. We knew there was something not entirely right about these guys." Buffy explained.

"Well, we wanted to know more about them. At first it seemed like we were all on the same team, as it were." Giles interjected.

"Not so much." Buffy shrugged bitterly. "They turned out to be the 'fry brains first, ask questions later' type. They caught both of us, but- Spike helped me escape."

"An' Slayer helped me." Spike inched his chair nearer to hers, and squeezed her knee under the table.

"But you're both okay now. You weren't brainwashed." Joyce sighed in relief. "Thank God."

"Not exactly." Giles winced.

"How not exactly?" Joyce demanded.

"Mom- if it weren't for super healing and having my friends find us and try to help us remember stuff- I wouldn't even know who you are." Buffy confessed in a miserable whisper.

"They can only remember about two weeks before they were attacked." Giles spoke quickly and gravely. "Whoever they saw in those two weeks, and some flashes of memory from before, but nothing concrete or sequential. Buffy didn't see you in those two weeks, so..."

"My daughter knew you. And a vampire. But not me? Not her own mother?" Joyce's voice was rising, along with an angry white pallor across her neck.

"Only because of the timeframe." Giles placated.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't help it." Buffy pleaded.

"Didn't even remember her own last name at first, Joyce, honest." Spike spoke up hastily.

"Maybe if you cared more about your mother than this secret vampire hunting job, you'd have recognized me. Maybe you'd have come to visit me lately. Maybe you wouldn't even be in this mess. No, you _wouldn't_ be in this mess, because I wouldn't have let you do something so stupid as follow a vampire into a demon hunting headquarters!"

"Mom!"

"Joyce!"

"Steady on!" Spike rose. Joyce rose as well.

"_You _let this happen to her! _Both _of you! Rupert, why aren't you in this situation? Were you even there?" Joyce shouted, shoving her chair angrily back.

"I wasn't there, and don't think I don't loathe myself for it. For every time I've been just a shade too late." He whispered fiercely.

"And that's happened a lot, hasn't it? Hasn't it?" Joyce put her hands on her hips.

"Stop this!" Buffy shot out of her chair. "Please, stop this. I don't remember- but I'm getting better. In another week or so I'm going to start remembering everything a lot faster, and a lot better. Please don't fight." _Over me. About me. I've seen this all before and I die inside. I don't mean to cause trouble. I don't mean to let you down. _"I didn't mean to, Mom. I'm so sorry." Buffy's eyes overflowed.

"Oh, Poppet." Spike put his arm around her shoulders and drew her close. "Shhh. Shh now, your mum knows it isn't your fault. She's not mad at you."

"No, I'm mad at you! Bad enough you tried to kill her and you kidnapped her friends. You might have helped her once, but- but so did Angel. Buffy, you can't trust vampires, you can't let yourself get involved with them. They're not 'good'. Maybe some aren't bad, but none of them are 'good'. Look what happens to you when you're with them!"

"It was my choice to help Spike!" Buffy wiped at her eyes angrily.

"And he let you. What kind of selfish idiot would let a little girl go running off after monsters and armed men?" Joyce divided her accusation between Spike and Giles.

"Little girl?" Spike overrode her. "_Little girl_? This is the _Slayer_. This is the chosen one, she's no little girl. She's a fighter an' a hell of a woman. An' I want to keep her safe, too, but I don't go muckin' about tryin' to clip her wings."

"What the hell right do you have to talk to me like that? You're not her mother! You're not even her Watcher or one of her teachers. You're a demon and a killer!"

"I_ love _her!" Spike snarled.

Horrified silence filled the room. They had agreed before going to see Joyce not to focus on that part, instead to dwell on the issue of amnesia and the need for secrecy and a place to conceal the injured parties until after finals at least. Now Joyce was staring at them in disgust, and Giles was staring at them in acute frustration.

"You love Buffy? You love that Drusilla girl!" Joyce blurted.

"Once. Not now." Spike said softly.

"Buffy, you can't seriously-"

"I love him, too. No matter what he did. That's the past. Forgive and move on." Buffy said loyally.

"What right do memories have to rule the future, when they can get wiped out so easy?" Spike pleaded his case. "I swear to you, Joyce, I'm gonna be the best man you could ask for. I'll be the best husband you ever-"

"Husband? Did you say husband?" Joyce grabbed a chair for support.

"Well- not right away, Mom, but- but yeah. I mean, he's the one I want, and slayers don't live- uh- don't live the easiest lives, so we might as well enjoy them." Buffy wrung her hands in Spike's grasp. "I know this is so much to take in, and I didn't want to tell you that even, but," Buffy looked into Spike's gorgeous blue eyes, apologetic and clearly in love, " but sometimes things happen and you have to face them. Even if talking about it isn't easy."

"She knows what I did, Joyce. She knows I'm bad, an' she knows I'll change. I have changed. Ask Giles." Spike reached one hand to Joyce, who backed away, almost spitting in her rage.

"I will not ask Giles, or anyone. Two weeks ago, Spike wasn't even mentioned, now you're engaged to him? Buffy, losing your memory is one thing, losing your mind is another matter!"

"There was a spell." Giles said wearily. "Willow did it, shortly before the incident with these commandos. It went wrong, slightly. In an unintended side effect, the two of them became engaged, but when the spell wore off, they returned to their normal tenuous relationship."

"Yeah, but when we got zapped, the last thing we remembered clearly was bein' in love. So we acted the part. Looked after one another, protected each other, comforted, cheered up, in general- loved each other." Spike grinned unevenly.

"It isn't the spell, and it isn't reprogramming. We really do love each other. Even though it seems fast to you- it's the whole world, all we have, to us." Buffy pleaded for her mother to understand.

Joyce tried. Because deep inside every mother is the desire for her child to be loved and happy. And even deeper is the desire to see your child safe. "I want you to be happy. I want you to be loved." Joyce cleared her throat. "But not like this. Not with him."

"Why not him?" Buffy asked. Deep inside every child is the desire to please their parent, give them love and gain their approval. But with nothing else but her love and short built life with Spike to go on, she ignored those feelings towards her parent. She focused on Spike. His love, his protection, his support of her as a slayer and as a woman with emotions and needs.

"He can't give you a normal life, Baby. He can't ever make you happy."

"He does make me happy!" Buffy protested.

"Right now, maybe. What about when he kills one of your friends?"

"Can't kill, Joyce. Chipped. Can't even punch." Spike frowned. "But that doesn't matter. I've been dead, livin' like a monster, for over a century. Let the beast in me rule, an' then I got a second chance. Literally a clean slate. The man came back out, an' he's stayin' out. I might want the blood, but I don't want the death anymore."

"Rupert, help me explain to her." Joyce pleaded with the older man.

"I don't think one can ever explain love, how quickly, or slowly it develops." Giles answered quietly.

"Don't tell me you knew about this?" She was aghast.

"I had no choice but to know about it. I've been witnessing it since the attack."

"And you never thought to come to me?" She asked incredulously.

"We did, Mom, but they could have hunted you down! They hunted Giles and Willow, they were searching for all of us, anyone they knew had a connection. Then when we called to warn you, you were on your way out of town anyway so we figured you'd be safe. We hoped it'd get better suddenly, and maybe by the time you got back..." Buffy trailed off when her mother remained unmoved.

"It had to be me an' Slayer, Joyce, 'cause we were already in the thick of it. We were all we had for sure. An' I know you'd lay your life down for this girl, but when you've got no memory of a person-" He left off with a frustrated shrug. "Didn't mean to leave you out, not in a bad way."

Joyce felt a stirring of her old sympathy for the charming and charismatic vampire. He explained things with such passion and sincerity. It was easy to believe he loved Buffy, easy to believe he only wanted the best for her. She hadn't felt the same warmth towards Angel, never had, not before he went bad, or after he reclaimed himself.

But the fact remained- vampires could never give her daughter the happy, normal life she deserved. The life Joyce firmly believed, hoped against hope, that would one day be returned to her. One day the slaying and the terrors of the supernatural would go back in their nightmare box, and her baby would be safe again.

"Mom?" Buffy broke the stillness.

"Spike might love you. You might love him. But you're not thinking clearly. You're just like any young woman in love, and all you can see is him." Joyce took her daughter by the shoulders. "You have to think past that. Someday you're going to want to live a normal life, a house with a garden, a daughter of your own playing in it. A life where there's no place for vampires, Honey."

"But if there's no place for Spike- then there isn't a place for me, either." Buffy shook off her mother's embrace regretfully. "Angel told me the same thing. He came up here, to try to take Spike away from me, too. He said he left me to give me a shot at a normal life." Buffy's eyes hardened. "It's hard for me to think about, 'cause this all feels new to me, but- well, no matter what, I don't get a normal life. I'm the Slayer. We don't live very long, Mom. We always roam the night, hunting the bad things in the world. We never get to the house, garden, daughter stage."

"But this slayer might!" Spike jumped in. "'Cause she's not a loner, like the rest. She's got pals, an' jus' think what she'd be able to do if she had another person on her team that was almost as lethal as she was, but was harder to kill, an' who loved her more than life or death itself. I don't think I can get her to the daughter part of your happy little fantasy, Joyce, but I swear to God I'll get her to a decent little apartment an' a window box full of flowers. Someday I hope we can manage that house an' garden." Spike cupped Buffy's chin in his hand. "There's nothin' I wouldn't do for her. An' I can do what she actually _needs_. Protect her when she's down, fight with her at her best, keep up with her. Not many 'normal' blokes can do that, Joyce."

"Virtually none." Giles added softly, speaking for the first time in several minutes.

Joyce swiveled her gaze between all three of them. "What do you expect me to say? Give you my blessing?"

"That'd be lovely." Spike smiled winningly.

"And it'll be a cold day in hell before you get it." Joyce snapped. "Buffy Ann Summers, I'm not giving you a choice. I made that mistake once, and you got your heart broken. You got Miss Calendar killed, and everyone else hurt."

Buffy flinched guiltily and Giles strode forward, throwing out his chest angrily. "There is no way you can blame Buffy for that! For any of that! That was Angelus, and even then-"

"Even then, people died. When he came back, you still tried to make excuses for him, you still loved him!"

"Maybe I was wrong to do that, Mom, but it's different with Spike, I swear."

"It is. Angelus relies on a soul. I don't got one, an' I still act a damn sight better than he did. He didn't know how to love without one, an' I do. Loved that other woman, an' I know I love Buffy more than I ever did her. I know that Joyce. I can feel that. This girl- this is the one for me."

"He's the one for me, too." Buffy traced his jawline with her thumb. "No matter what anyone says."

"You don't care that he's _dead_?"

"Not as long as he's here with me, I guess." Buffy replied quietly. "Mom, I know you're mad, and you don't get it. It's a lot to take in, and you don't have to like it. We just needed to tell you about what's happening. So you can be safe. And we're going to have to find a way to be safe, too."

"You're_ not_ safe with Spike. Rupert, how can you allow-"

"There you go again. Allow- allow nothin'!"

"She might be the slayer, Spike, but she's my daughter."

"I'm not talkin' about her job, I'm talkin' about fallin' in love. You can't force that, an' you can't 'allow' it or 'disallow' it."

"Fine. I forbid it. Buffy, you won't remember this, but I asked you to make a choice before. Between working with Spike, and listening to your mother. You chose Spike."

"She saved the whole ruddy world!" Giles shouted.

"And this time you won't have that burden when you make your choice. You can either choose a monster you've 'loved' for a few weeks, or the mother who loved you and raised you for the last eighteen, almost nineteen years."

"I can't choose that, Mom." Buffy quavered. "Please don't ask me to. This- this isn't how I want to start remembering you."

"This isn't how I want you to start remembering me, either. Oh wait. I didn't want you to have lost your memory in the_ first _place." Joyce crossed her arms.

"You know I didn't want that either." Buffy's eyes overflowed.

"Sweetie, listen, just wait until your memory is back, really back. Until then, stay here with me. If Spike loves you, he'll wait." Joyce offered an empty compromise. She felt certain once her daughter's memory was back that she'd have no earthly reason to want Spike.

Spike looked at Buffy with impassive eyes and a blank face. Being without her would gut him. He didn't have as much in the world as Slayer did, nothing to ease his pain and get him through the turbulent times ahead. But he wouldn't ask her to choose. He would love her from afar and wait for her.

Buffy watched the face she loved deaden. Something inside her strengthened in response. "No. No, Mom. I'm not going to choose. You can choose if you want. From now on, Spike's part of my life, part of the package."

"You aren't my daughter. You are brainwashed. Something inside you- something inside you is _wrong!"_

"Then I don't want to be right, I guess." Buffy whispered, tears trailing from the corners of her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Let's not do anything we're going to regret." Giles stepped between the couple and Joyce. "Joyce, you know Buffy is always Buffy, and will forever be your daughter."

"Then tell her that I'm her _mother!_"

"I know you are, Mom." Buffy murmured. "And Spike's my future husband. You're both supposed to be in my life."

"No, he isn't. Spike, if you love her, you'll leave her, and let her have a happy, normal life."

"No!" Buffy yelped. "Spike, don't!"

"Joyce, please!" Giles voice was bordering on thunderous.

"I'm not leavin' Joyce. She doesn't want me to, an' I respect her wishes."

"At least Angel loved her enough to do what was best for her and leave when I asked him-" Joyce's voice suddenly ceased and she froze guiltily.

Spike and Buffy regarded her with hurt and puzzled eyes, and Giles with shock and outrage. Buffy of course didn't remember the heartbreak of being left, but Giles remembered it for her. In blinding detail, all the little things she hadn't thought he'd seen. A constant droop to her shoulders, endless tear streaks hastily wiped away, a nervous habit of reaching for the ring that she no longer wore.

"You told him to leave? To leave me?" Buffy whispered.

"I had to, Honey. He was going to ruin your life." The older woman confessed.

"You told him to leave- and he left? He didn't even try to stay? Did he tell you no? Did you force him to go somehow?" Buffy shook her head anxiously.

"He's worse than I thought." Spike snorted. "Didn't even make the decision himself. Let someone else take him from you. From the one he loved. Well, guess what, Mrs. Summers, I'm not like that wanker. No one separates me from what I love. 'Specially not if she loves me back an' wants me to stay."

"Which I do. Forever." Buffy had eyes only for him. "No matter what anyone says. Even if it's just the two of us against the whole world, I still want you."

"You got me, Slayer." Spike assured. Buffy melted into his arms, head on his chest, letting his chin come to rest on her soft blonde hair.

"I will not watch this!" Joyce slammed her hand on the table with a sharp 'thwap'. "Buffy, listen to me. I was wrong in the way I did things, but I was right to do them. You cannot-"

"The only thing I _cannot _do, Mom, is leave Spike and break my heart again. It hurts enough not remembering anything important in my life, I'm not taking what little I have that I _do _remember and throw it away!"

"You'll throw away the rest of your life instead?"

"I guess so." Buffy smiled brokenly. "I guess- I guess we don't have anything more to say, huh?"

"Not until you stop acting like this!" Joyce also had tears in her eyes, a pleading expression in every line of her face.

"C'mon, Slayer." Spike led her away from the dining room, looking back over his shoulder to Joyce. "She isn't thinkin' straight, or she'd realize she's soundin' bloody stupid."

"Don't you walk away from me!" Joyce followed.

"Mom, I don't want to walk away from you! I love you. I know I love you, just like I know I love Spike. It isn't something you have to _remember_. It's something you have to _know_." Buffy turned back to face her.

"If you loved me, you'd listen to me." Joyce said desperately.

"And if you loved me- you'd hear what I'm saying." Buffy suddenly dissolved into tears and pushed away from Spike, and her mother, racing out the front door.

"Bloody hell. Slayer! Buffy, you don't know where you're goin', Luv!" Spike raced after her. "Wonderful job, send the girl who can't remember her own mother out into the demon infested night while commandos are lookin' for her, in a town she doesn't recognize. You might be her mum, but I think _I'm_ the one who loves her like she _needs _to be loved!" Spike hollered at Joyce, and slammed the door after himself.

"There you are!" Spike had done a flying leap off the porch and was running pell mell down the walk when he caught her scent, stationary. He turned. His lover was sitting in Giles' car, looking miserable, but not crying as hard as she had been. With a relieved sigh, Spike slid in beside her. "Budge up?"

"Always room for you." Buffy smiled tearfully.

"Oh, Poppet, don't you cry. Breaks my heart when you cry. Breaks my heart." Spike pulled her close and rocked her.

"I'm supposed to be tough. Hah. Everyone says so. Except my mother. Who treats me like a little girl. And my ex, supposed love of my life, who treats me like some stepford child who needs to be protected from herself. And then there's you. You get it right. You let me cry and be weak, and then you tell everyone who treats me like I can't handle myself to go to hell."

"I didn't tell your mum to go to hell. I suggested she get her head out of her ass, that's all." Spike kissed the top her tearstained cheek.

"Yeah, well, better than I did. I went all girly and ran away."

"You did not go 'all girly'. Your heart was in torment. No shame to take a breather. When I thought you might tell me to leave, Luv- I felt gutted. Very temptin' to run."

"I wouldn't leave you, you idiot." Buffy clung to him. "We need each other. Even when the rest of the world starts coming back into play, Spike, it's like looking on it from the outside. Only what happened since the attack feels real. You're the only real love I know and remember."

"I know, Pet. I know. Thanks for not runnin' far."

"I wanted to. But I don't know anything past this block." Buffy admitted sheepishly. Spike laughed softly.

"Tell you what, Luv. Your mum's just all upset. We'll give her five minutes with Rupert to sort her out, an' we'll go back in."

"Giles can't sort her out. Are you kidding? He's like, Mr. Tea and Crumpets, 'oh, dear Lord, I've broken a pencil' man."

"You know that's only half of him, Poppet." Spike opened the car door and slid out. "Let's go listen in, shall we?"

"How are we supposed to hear?" Buffy reluctantly exited the vehicle.

"Super senses, Slayer." Spike grinned. "Might as well use 'em."

There was a breathless silence in the wake of the heated departure. Giles shook himself into action. "He's right. She has no idea where she's going. She didn't have the best sense of direction before this." Giles said worriedly.

"Don't you try to turn this around on me. I wanted her to stay. I never wanted her with a monster. God, Rupert, married to a vampire! She's insane!" Joyce put worried hands to her temples and massaged.

"Joyce, please, listen to me-"

"You can't tell me you're okay with this!" Joyce shouted angrily.

"I don't relish her choice, but I didn't want her to leave! _Again_."

"She left because you let her go on keeping secrets from me-"

"Oh, _bullshit_!" Giles tore off his glasses. "She left the first time because you told her to choose between saving the world or staying with you. Then you told her not to come back."

"I was angry! Don't pretend to even know what I felt, know what I feel! I'm her mother, she's my baby!"

"And she's the closest thing to a daughter I will_ ever_ have! I devoted my life to training to be her mentor, her partner, and she became like my own child! She is a gift, Joyce, and she was never meant to be given ultimatums that force her to choose between her sacred duty and her 'normal' life! It's hard enough to bear the strain of both as it is." He let himself get inches away from Joyce, and he was as close to physically striking her as he had ever come to striking a woman in his life.

"You keep the hell away from my daughter, Rupert Giles." Joyce's voice was low and deadly.

"You selfish bitch." Giles shook his head, his own voice holding decidedly malignant undercurrent. "Do you truly think you own her?"

Joyce's eyes flamed for a second, then flickered out, her voice coming out in a hoarse whisper. "She's all I have left, Giles."

Giles swallowed down his rage. "She's all any of us have left when you get down to it. Spike and I. She's that important."

"I want to keep her safe. You want to kill her." Joyce's eyes filmed with tears.

"We would die before we let her come to harm. All three of us." Giles said solemnly, his own eyes feeling strangely painful.

"I don't want to lose her again."

"Of course not, none of us do. The only way we can prevent it is by working together. The Slayer's never had a team. She's never had a mother on her side, either. Buffy stands a chance at living a long and happy life if we all work together." Giles gripped her arms forcefully, directing her head up. "It's either all of us together or the two of them against the whole world. If you love her, you'll stand with her."

"I'd stand up against the gates of hell for her. I'm a mother. It's what we do." Joyce's eyes stopped leaking, replaced by fiery determination.

"I always knew Buffy got her spark from something besides her calling." Giles paid her an honest compliment and Joyce inclined her head. "I- I apologize for calling you- any names."

"Like selfish bitch?"

"Erm. Yes. That one."

"I thought I was talking to my old band candy friend for a second." Joyce mused before she could stop herself. Her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh. Oh, Rupert, I shouldn't have-"

"I'll let you in on a secret, Joyce. Two things bring that side of me to the front. Cursed chocolate, and someone threatening Buffy. Or anyone I care about." Giles noticed they were still standing very close together, and he hastily backed up.

"Well, those are good reasons." Joyce cleared her throat. "Tea?'

"Yes, please. Oh, no, I'm sorry. I'd best not, we need to find Spike and Buffy."

Out on the front porch, Spike looked at Buffy. "Should we go in now?"

"Yeah. Should we tell them we heard?" Spike had relayed everything word for word, hearing almost all of the conversation with his excellent enhanced hearing.

"Not the last bit. Your mum an' Giles' heart rates have gone all wonky. Think those two...?"

"I don't know. I did feel like he's my dad. Maybe we should leave them alone- let things get simmering."

"If we don't go in, they'll come out huntin' for us. No simmerin' of any kind. Let's go in an' tell 'em were okay an' see if we can't make a hasty retreat. Leave them alone- an' get some time alone ourselves." He smiled seductively.

"And where would we get that alone time? Wasn't that part of the reason we came here? To see about staying with my mother?"

"Somehow I don't think she'd be too keen on that, Luv." Spike grimaced. "Not today at any rate. Kind of shovin' her face in it. Stay at the old mansion again?"

"Mmm, that does sound like a good idea." Buffy felt a wave of warmth flood her. Her mother had said things that hurt, but what Spike overheard showed she really did care. And Giles and her mom seemed to be more than just causal friends if you shoved them hard enough, which made her happy. They both seemed like good people, too good to be alone- and when you're in love, you know how great it is, and you wish everyone had the same thing. Plus, on a purely selfish note, the thought of Spike and her having an undisturbed night made her feel tingly. "I bet- I bet there's a lot more stuff we could do with that bathtub than just splash each other."

"Someone feels better." Spike squeezed her bottom and pushed open the door with a loud cough. "Oi! Call off the search party. Slayer jus' needed a breather. Hope it was mutual." He stared at Joyce.

Joyce streaked to the door. "Don't ever leave again! Even if I'm an idiot, Honey!" She wrapped Buffy in a hug. "I still wish you'd listen to me, and I think you should steer clear of boyfriends without a pulse, but- just never leave again."

"Hrrm hmm." Giles coughed pointedly and glared at the older woman.

"You're all I have left Buffy. I love you."

"Love you, Mom."

"Hrmmm hmmm!" Giles cleared his throat more violently. Joyce sighed.

"No more ultimatums from me." Joyce told her child. "Rupert and I talked and I'm not saying I agree with everything he said. But I do know that you are precious to me, and to everyone you meet. You have a hard road, Buffy, and I don't mean to make it harder. Sometimes I just..." Joyce gave a painful smile and shook her head as words failed to manifest.

"Wish you could call the shots an' keep her safe? Make sure she never loses that pretty smile?" Spike supplied. Wide eyed, Joyce nodded. "See? I dolove her. 'Cause I get that feelin' too. But I remember who she is. They don't make jus' anyone the Slayer."

"No. They only pick the best and bravest." Giles murmured.

"I just wish they picked the best and bravest moms as part of the deal." Joyce laughed ruefully.

"Oh, they did Mom. I know they did." Buffy squeezed her arm.

There was an emotionally charged silence, full of unshed maternal tears and unspoken worries and demands. Giles cleared his throat pointlessly and Spike grew tired of holding silence. He was never good at that anyway.

"So- do we get your blessin' then?" He asked loudly. Buffy rolled her eyes and Joyce frowned.

"No." She crossed to the vampire and stood in front of him. "But-" She poked him suddenly in the ribs, glaring at his surprised face, "I won't take a fire ax to the back of your head if you touch my daughter- for right now."

Spike got over his surprise and smirked, catching her hand, making her forget her reservations fro just a second and smile. "Well. Things are lookin' up."

_To be continued..._


	15. Chapter 15

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Notes: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Dedicated to Lithium Reaper, DLillith21, ginar369,, Lil-Leti, Captain Peroxide, Vera Snape-Evans, Arshes13, kim kelly, Good for the Soul,The Ship's Cat, McPastey, and Little Missy123 _

_A short, but important chapter. Fear not, Spuffy smut returns in the next installment._

_Thank you for your support! __**This story has been nominated at The Sunnydale Memorial Fanfiction Awards,**__ (located at /indexdothtml) in the following categories: _

_Best New Author, Best Drama, Best Pairing Conventional, Best Unfinished_

_**If you like it, please go vote for it!**_

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part XV

"Do you know where you're going?" Buffy peered through the black painted car window.

"I think so. Are we bein' followed?" Spike swallowed his irritation that even though he'd apparently lived at the mansion at one time, he only half remembered how to get there at this point based on his few trips there since the attack.

"No. I think we're good for now. Of course, when Giles gets done having his 'calming down' cup of tea with my mother and realizes we didn't go back to his place, that's another story." Buffy laughed. "He'll know we couldn't really ask today. She was still so upset." Buffy wiped a hand across her tired brow, headache looming from all the stress of the last hour or so.

"At least she was remorseful an' worried upset, not angry an' ballistic upset." Spike shook his head at the memory of Joyce Summers' flashing eyes turned large and tearful. Slayer had one hell of a life, an' her poor mum got dragged along with it. Spike couldn't stay mad at his future mother-in-law for long. Seemed to him everyone the slayer business touched had something bad happen to them, and everyone was going to handle it differently. He sighed inside, grateful that his particular method of handling it included frenzied bouts of love making and getting to brawl - sometimes seemingly at the same time. His budding smirk was wiped away by Buffy's soft, weary voice.

"I guess so. But any kind of upset is of the , I meet my mom_ once_ and she screams at me, argues with me, and then cries all over me. I must be one fun daughter to have. Man, I still feel so terrible."

"Shh, Poppet. No beatin' up on yourself. You're the best girl in the world. If you weren't, no one would give a damn about everything you do, get so worked up. You're just so loved, Pet." Spike reached over and squeezed her knee. "Give it a day to cool, Luv." Spike soothed. "You an' me both know, a lot can happen in a day."

"Yeah. You're right." Buffy nodded, setting her shoulders bravely. "So then tomorrow- I guess tomorrow we ask her." She rubbed her stomach as it gnawed with unhappiness. _Super. Asking your mom, who you barely remember, and who's really scary when she's upset, to let you and your fiancé, who she really, really doesn't like, if you can move in to her house. Together. As in share a room. Peachy. _"I was asking you. We- we ask her tomorrow?" She looked at him.

"Unless you like livin' with the lights off, Poppet." Spike swung the car sharply onto Crawford Street, muttering a curse that he'd nearly missed it. " We can stay here in our recreation of the Victorian era. I already did it once, maybe somethin' wilI come back to me, right, Pet?" They both laughed softly, and then Spike became more serious. "I know it isn't easy livin' with someone."

"I like living with _you_." Buffy sighed. "Just you. I like all these people- I even guess I love them- or I will when my brain is less fried, but... They- they remember the _old_ me. Even when my mind comes back, I'm not going to be that girl anymore."

"I know. Like seein' everythin' through someone else's eyes. New perspectives, yeah?" Spike parked.

"Exactly. So this is going to be just oodles of fun. Living with the woman who knows me best, and yay- who I apparently remembered the least. Urghhh, this sounds so horrible, but I really don't want to do that." Buffy put her head back with a groan.

"I know, Poppet. Could be worse. She's comin' around." Spike rubbed her shoulder encouragingly, unable to imagine what kind of tangle her mind was in. His own was still so torn that he couldn't recall his own mother, and now- now she was long gone and he'd never get the chance to see her or get to know her again. He hoped his memories would come back eventually, but that was well over a hundred years ago that he'd last seen her. If he died fighting by Buffy's side in the next five years or so, would he ever remember the sound of her voice, her face, dammit, even her name?

Spike shook himself back to the present. She could comfort him later, he needed to step up for her now. "I promise, not for too long, Pet, if it's a strain on you. We gotta find our own place eventually. I refuse to live with my mother-in-law like some deadbeat husband."

"You are sorta dead." Buffy pointed out, trying to work up a smile for him. He was always her rock, so steady for her, defending her or comforting her, making her insides untwist slightly when he eased the pain. _He must think I'm so selfish, not wanting to be with my own mother when he'd probably give anything for one memory of his own. _

"Dead, but not _deadbeat_. Before I got chipped it sounds like I was quite powerful in demon circles, plottin' this an' plannin' that." Spike sighed. "An' I can still kick demon ass. Once these commando guys get taken care of, I'm goin' to get back in an' put some terror into this lot, keep 'em down. Then you won't have to work so hard." He took her hand again, and this time tugged, sliding her across the seat, into his lap. "I promised your mum, didn't I- that I'd get you your own little place with your own little window box until I could give you that house with a garden?"

"That's what she said I ought to have." Buffy caressed his face. "I just want our own little place, with you. Window boxes and gardens are so optional." He grinned and she kissed him. "I'll help, you know."

"I know. My Slayer's tough, pulls her own weight- an' apparently the weight of the whole damn world." He opened the door, and listened hard. Hearing nothing, he motioned it was safe to exit.

Buffy and Spike slid like black on black shadows from the dense tangle of overgrown grass and shrubs where they parked the car. As they neared the house, she whispered, a mere breath in his ear, knowing he'd hear it just fine. "I'll talk to Giles about working for the Council again, I guess. But I don't like it. They sound like jerks. Who'd fire someone 'cause they care about their student?"

"Wankers with too much power and not enough to do with it." Spike scoffed, pushing open the door. "You can see alright, Slayer?"

"Pretty good." Buffy was still impressed with that aspect of herself, the semi- night vision she had. "No lights, right?"

"None. Except some candles, down low, where they won't reflect." Spike tugged her through the downstairs rooms once the main door was locked and bolted. He still hated those rooms, and she did, too, he could tell by the way she practically ran over him to get up the steps.

"I'm good with that. No lights. No interruptions. No one unfriendly knowing where we are." She paused at the top of the steps, somewhat breathlessly, not from exertion but from the constant torrent of worry she'd had all afternoon and evening. "Spike?"

"What, Luv?"

"Do you think that Angel guy is really gone?"

Spike considered. "Well, the wanker said he wouldn't leave until you got help, but Giles said he talked him into working on the Initiative end of things, so I guess we're at a fifty-fifty shot." Spike shrugged out of his duster and reclaimed her hand. "Are you worried?"

Buffy considered. "Not so much really. I think we could kick him out."

"Did it once. We'll be even better the second time." He smiled cockily.

"Yeah. If he shows up." Buffy sighed and shook out her hair.

"If he's got any brains at all, he's left town." Spike scowled. "Bein' as he left you, the man's a moron, an' I'm not too hopeful."

"It doesn't matter where he is, I guess. As long as he's not here, right now, we're good."

Angel pulled into the worst backwater town he'd seen in probably the last hundred years. And he'd been through the Depression and a few epidemics in that time. "Welcome to your new home." Angel told his passenger. He gestured to the blackened, smoggy mass of a small blot on the desert horizon, an hour from the next town. And that would be a long, un-survivable hour on foot, in the heat of the California climate. Which is why he supposed they had picked this place for a settlement. No one would bother them, and no one would leave alive unless given permission. The worst place you could be if you were a prisoner. The best place you could be if you were a jailor.

Maggie Walsh sat up groggily. Fear finally crashed her overtaxed adrenaline system and she'd fallen asleep somehow. "Where are we? What do you want with me?"

"Well," Angel vamped and looked at her with cold, mocking eyes, all the pent up demon in him speaking out in spite of his soul, " what I _really _want with you is to get to know everything you care about, and then torture it and kill it- and save you for dessert. Hopeless, heartbroken people always tasted so much better to me."

Maggie winced and suddenly felt glad that she didn't care about much that one could "torture". Her work, her discoveries, that was what she found important. "I see." She tried to speak calmly. It was a demon after all, inferior and weak minded. "And you're brining me to this place to do that?"

"Close, but no cigar." Angel suddenly hauled Walsh out of the car roughly, hearing tendons stretching and possibly snapping, not giving a damn. "See, unlike you, I have a soul. Ha- I didn't know humans could lose theirs while they were still alive, but there you go, learn something new every decade." He laughed bitterly. "Anyway, I'm not quite stooping to your level- oh, pretty close, but not quite." He marched her jerkily along beside him, heading towards a gutted looking concrete building that had seen better days.

"My level? My soul? What utter nonsense are you- ohh!" Maggie's voice died away as she was slammed hard into the wall of a nearby building, head smacking back into the crumbling brick.

"You want to get out of this even a_ little_ bit alive? Angel demanded with a harsh guttural pant. "Then you shut up."

Maggie obediently closed her mouth. Her captor nodded, and a look of absolute dejection and exhaustion washed over his face. "If you told me I'd ever get my hands this dirty again- I would have told you no, I'd rather be killed first. Guess what, Doc, you already made me feel like they tore my heart out."

"Oh yes. Your mate." Walsh's scientific curiosity temporarily pushed thoughts for her safety and the need for silence from her mind. "You mentioned her." Some prattle about seeking his revenge, for the "woman he loved." Again, the weakness of emotions. The world would be better when Adam and those like him governed it.

"Mate? Mate? What the hell am I, a lab monkey? We don't _mate_, we love. We're still part human, you know." Angel spat in disgust. "The woman I love. I _love_. Yeah, this is for her. Because you took everything she ever loved- and you went poof- and erased it. You torture demons and you don't even know if they're hurting people. When you do know they are, like hey, most _vampires_, you just play with them. Is it fun for you, Mags? You like playing God? Who lives, who dies, who gets chipped, who gets their life erased?" His voice rose to a shout, and Maggie's body rose off the ground, his hand wrapped around her throat. When she made a gargling, gasping, choked sound, he dropped her, watching her crumple and finding it did little to ease the rage and sense of loss he had. _Buffy doesn't love me anymore. I knew she'd move on... but I always thought- I always thought it'd be the same for both of us. We'd always love each other. Someday there might be someone else in our lives, never in our hearts. I was wrong. And this is the bitch responsible. She took me from her mind, and slipped Spike right in my place._

Angel jerked her to her feet again. "Okay, see, I'm holding back, but you don't really deserve that. Are you familiar with the Bible, Mags?"

"More- nonsese." Maggie rasped, massaging her throat.

Angel shook his head, a patronizing expression on his face. "Mm, see if you had a soul, you'd know there was a God, because you'd know only someone with infinite power could create someone like her. Could create love and pain and make you know the difference." Angel tossed her the last few steps towards the building, suddenly not able to touch her. "You aren't God, Maggie, or you'd know right and wrong. You've been playing in the wrong for such a long time." Angel's voice became soft and treacherous. He knelt in front of the middle aged woman, a twisted smile on his face. "See, there's this whole thing in the Bible. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. How many minds did you take, Mags? Huh? I know about your little research project. How many test subjects? A hundred? More?"

"That- that's classified, how did you-"

"Nothing is classified, Mags. Not to people like me."

Angel's brown black eyes met hers, and she shivered. There was pure malice in his gaze, something so cruel, and yet he didn't even touch her, hadn't hurt her as badly as a vampire could.

"Oh, Maggie, Maggie, Maggie. I was like you once. You think your sins are never gonna catch up with you." Angel's cold smile broadened, and Walsh felt the trembling of fear grow into an almost panic. "But they always do." Angel rose abruptly and banged on the heavy iron door they'd come to. "Let's see... you like imprisoning things that you really know should be disposed of right? Or sometimes things you haven't even researched, haven't found out if they're harmful or not? You like to call the shots, keep people in cages like your private collection? Never mind if they never hurt anyone or they were technically on your side." Angel jerked his forearm across his suddenly dampening eyes. Buffy had only ever tried to help. Had given him love and support and a second chance. And he'd left her. Look what happened to her when he left her. All she was trying to do was her job and trying to protect the innocent... and someone arbitrarily decides she's a demon because she's out there protecting the world from them. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"I blamed myself. I should've been there to protect her, but I wasn't. Now I'm blaming you." Angel stepped back just in time as the metal door crashed open.

"Angelus?" A tall, muscular demon covered in horns and spines stood before them. Maggie gasped. She didn't usually get close to demons unless they were drugged or tied down. Or dead.

"No, actually it's Angel."

"You fight against us. You've been killing the demons who embrace our power and seek to subjugate the lowly humans." The booming voice argued.

"Yeah, well, I made an exception. Can I speak to your boss?"

"Come told me you'd contacted him. Pick up that filth." The demon jerked its head at Maggie. Angel nodded and wordlessly hoisted Maggie up by her collar, again, hearing her choke, but not caring.

Angel followed the doorman/ guard down a long hallway until they reached a workroom area. "Angel to see you, Sir."

"Hurry up, Angelus, I'm busy. These spells won't perform themselves." An identical looking demon, although more stooped and more gray and cracking in appearance was before them, facing away, bent over rows of ancient books.

"It's Angel. And yes, I kill your kind, yadda yadda. You'll still do what I asked?"

"I've heard it's better not to displease you. The Powers- they like you. You're a champion." The man still didn't turn from his stack of books on the table in front of him.

"I don't know about that, I just know I need one of your cells. And they have to keep her alive. Alive is the_ only _requirement." Angel shook Maggie and glared into her eyes.

"For how long?" The demon asked in a mildly interested voice.

"That depends on her." Angel then turned and addressed Walsh. "You can spend a week here, and no one will touch you- much- if you expose the Initiative now. Make calls, write letters, whatever you have to do. You stay here until it's shut down and they're out of Sunnydale."

"I don't have that kind of power." Maggie explained desperately, concern for her work warring with concern for her safety.

"You have some. More than most of your little green goons." Angel argued fiercely.

"But-"

"But the other option is I leave you here until _I _shut it down, working with my team and some other- interested parties- I know about. That's going to take a whole lot longer."

"You can't shut us down. We're a huge operation, hundreds of men and women are working and we're working under authority of the government!"

"You might've been. Something tells me they wouldn't like the direction you're taking with your 'reprogrammable pet' project. Do you really think the United States wants you to start making super soldiers out of demons? Do they know about that, Mags?"

By the flash of uncomfortableness in her eyes, Angel knew they didn't. And by the thinning of her lips and sudden mulish expression, he knew she was protecting something and she wasn't going to cooperate. "Hmm. Normally I'd admire your gutsy silence or whatever you're calling this thing where you act stupid. But right now it just really, really pisses me off. Okay, Gerald. Gimme something in a solitary confinement, heavy on the doom and despair motif." Angel straightened up and addressed their host.

"As you wish. Go to the old meat packing plant, tell them I sent you, and what you want. No funny business, Angel. We'll keep this one alive for you, but you don't hurt any of our men."

"Consider this neutral territory. And if they stay off my home turf, you have nothing to worry about outside of here. Oh, and keep them out of Sunnydale."

"Always do." Gerald waved absently over his shoulder and went back to his books. Angel forced Maggie up and out the door. He asked directions to the location he wanted and was sent on a route leading west into the worst areas of destruction.

"See what demons can do to a place? This used to be a nice little town, I bet. But someone let this demon infestation get out of control and now you've got a nice little mercenary-slash-prison operation set up here. Demons from all kinds of dimensions send their prisoners here for safe keeping. Or termination. There goes the neighborhood." Angel's mocking smile slid away with fearful suddenness. "That's why _you kill them _when they can want to hurt the humans, not play mad scientist with them." Angel growled in his captive's ear.

"You- you can't really expect to leave me in a place like this. I- I have- squads at my disposal, they'll come looking for me, they'll hunt you down, burn this ruin to the ground!" She hissed desperately.

"I don't have any objection to either of those things, Mags. As long as you get a taste of your own medicine first." Angel ignored the pangs his soul was sending, that he was no better than her, that this was wrong. Giles was right. Where Buffy was involved- he had always been ruthless, in whatever form he was in. Maybe because he'd never loved anyone before her. Probably because he'd never love anyone again.

Walsh felt him pause, his grip loosen, and she tugged urgently. Big mistake.

Angel slammed her into the nearest wall, this time shoulder first. Walsh moaned and he heard a crunch. "Don't do that. Weird as it sounds, I'm the only thing keeping you alive right now. You run free in here, and you'll get to find out exactly what it feels like when you send those soldier boys of yours out to catch demons. Hunted. Scared." He lowered his voice to an almost teasing whisper, "The only difference is your boys don't like to eat demon, but these guys would _love_ to eat you." He had the satisfaction of watching her blanch and felt her convulsively shiver. "Now you're getting it. So- phone calls, letters? Tell me who to contact, Mags, and you'll be out of here a lot faster."

Someone would find her. She had the highest, most elite men in her command, and they were loyal to her. No... they were military. They obeyed orders. Who would give the order to find her? Finn would do it, of course. But how would they track her? And how long would it take?

"That's right... just tell me and I'll do it." Angel wheedled silkily.

They'd find Adam. Or at least, the beginnings of him. Oh God, her work. All her work. "I'm not talking. Whatever you do," her voice shook, "I'll do a thousand times worse. You will pay for this."

"Oh, God, that line. Okay, well, I'm a little tapped out, Mags, so I'm afraid you're going to have to take an IOU." Angel decided the building they were facing must be the old meat packing plant, although it was so soot covered and bleak you couldn't tell what it was. Normally he could have smelled traces of the blood and meat that had been packed there, but now all he could smell was despair and a hundred different odors of death. He banged on the door and it was opened by another demon of the same species they'd met earlier.

"Whoa. A vampire and a human. We don't get a lot of that." The demon blinked.

"I feel real special." Angel snapped. "Gerald sent me over. Prisoner for you. Solitary. Very solitary and you can go heavy on the discomfort. Only one rule. She stays alive. No, two rules, sorry. She stays alive, and when she says she wants to call me, you call me, anytime, no games." Angel handed him his card.

"Uhhh. Wow. Okay." The demon shrugged and shook his head. "Man, Gerald must be losing it. Taking in a human for a vamp." He looked at the card. "Oh. Ohhhh. Angelus."

"Angel."

"But you-"

"Kill you guys, yeah I know. Gerald isn't losing his mind, he's earning you some staying alive time, and he probably wouldn't like it if I told him his flunkies are so disloyal in their opinions."

"Step right this way, Honored Guest. Pick out any cell you want." The lackey's attitude changed dramatically. Angel rolled his eyes and immediately headed towards the lowest level of the rotting building, figuring those cells would be the darkest and most disgusting. He was right.

"This looks fun." Angel stopped at one of the few heavy black rusted doors. The cell he revealed was the size of a narrow closet and completely bare unless you counted the layer of wet black grime coating the walls and floor. "You like putting things in cages, right, Mags?" Angel shoved her in and she skidded, landing in the filth. "Let me see what else you liked... oh yeah. Ruining people's lives and erasing their memories. Starvation technique entered into it, right, that's how you got them drugged for surgery? Oh, surgery! You like that. But I'm betting these guys don't really have a medical background." Angel turned to the guard who stood in the doorway. "Hey! Anyone here with a medical degree? First aid training?" He called with a broad, mocking smile.

"Uhhh. No." He regarded Angel as if he'd lost his mind.

Angel turned his gaze back to Maggie, still loudly calling into the hall."Anyone here who likes sharp objects?"

"Oh, yeah! Plenty of _those_."

Maggie shivered but tried to appear cool. No emotion. _Emotion is weakness. This is simply a test of your survival skills. Your endurance. Your gag reflex. Dear God what _is _that smell?_

"Last chance, Mags." Angel stood slowly from where he'd been crouched, glowering into her hard eyes.

"Go to hell." She whispered hoarsely, hoping she sounded vehement but controlled.

"Already did." Angel's face clouded. _And I fought my way out- so I could be with her again. So I could tell her I was sorry and that I loved her, that I'd never leave her again. Within a year, I left her. Within a year- she's in her own kind of hell, put there by this lab coat bitch. I wasn't even the one to save her, goddamn it, Spike saved her. She's his now, and I- I get to help in whatever way I have left, I guess. Maybe someday she'll realize I helped like this. Maybe someday she'll see I never stopped loving her. That I did whatever I thought was best. _

Angel shook himself from his reverie. _"_Already spent some time in the Big H, Mags, and let me tell you, you'd fit in really good there." Angel addressed the woman on the floor, turning from her and walking out of the small narrow confines. "Let me know when you want the pain to stop." He shut the door behind him and spoke through the fist sized opening in the metal, watching Maggie scramble up and desperately rush to the door, palms slick with black ooze as she scrabbled at the edges.

"So we're allowed to- do stuff? As long as she's alive when you need to get her?" The demon's face appeared next to Angel's, a curious, hungry expression on his face.

"She has to be able to talk and she needs to be able to remember who to contact to stop the shit she's dumping on people I care about." Angel answered, eyes still locked on Maggie's. "Funny, huh? I'm telling him to spare your mind. Who's the better person here? Me, am I right?" He asked bitterly.

"You- you can't do this."

"You keep saying that. But I can. And I can make it stop. You just have to ask me to make it go away, and I will." Angel laughed, a broken, almost hysterical laugh. "Isn't that funny? I'm the better guy, again. Do you stop when your 'test subjects' beg you to?"

Walsh looked away suddenly. She tuned out noises and pleas. They were animals. Animals to be experimented on. Her kidnapper was still speaking, more to himself than her, and her thoughts derailed.

"I never thought I'd do this. Let someone else do my dirty work. I didn't even want to _have_ dirty work. And then- you come along. I guess I'm not _much _better, I mean, you chip vamps and demons so they can't hunt- but you know they'll just wither up and eventually something will kill them. You let someone else do the final stroke, huh?" Angel's eyes met hers again. "I'm still better though. I won't let you die. Bet you never promised anyone that, right, Professor?"

Maggie shook her head angrily. "You make all these comparisons. You're the monster, I'm a scientist. This is my job!"

"Then I guess this is mine. Doesn't the monster always turn on the scientist in the end?" Angel shrugged, and started to turn away. "I hope to hear from you soon. Oh-make sure everyone knows not to cut out her tongue or break her jaw too badly. Like I said-" Angel's eyes met hers one more time, "she has to be able to talk."

"Let me out of here!" Walsh's composure cracked at the mention of cutting out tongues. "You don't understand, you don't understand- I'm human_. _I'm _human_!"

Angel's fist shot through the opening and grabbed Maggie's chin, holding her steady, his stormy black eyes burning holes of hate into her.

"No. _You _don't understand. _So is she_." Angel shoved her back hard, and she toppled to the ground. He walked away, footsteps echoing in the prison, and he didn't look back.

_To be continued..._


	16. Chapter 16

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Notes: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Dedicated to Lithium Reaper, DLillith21, ginar369,, Lil-Leti, Captain Peroxide, Vera Snape-Evans, Arshes13, kim kelly, Good for the Soul,The Ship's Cat, Fanficfemale, McPastey, and Little Missy123 _

_Half Angel's introspection, half straight up primal sexy smut. Don't read the second half if you don't want the naughty parts._

_Thank you for your support! **This ****story ****has ****been ****nominated ****at ****The****Sunnydale****Memorial****Fanfiction****Awards,** (located at /indexdothtml) in the following categories: _

_Best New Author, Best Drama, Best Pairing Conventional, Best Unfinished_

_**If you like it, please go vote for it!**_

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part XVI

Angel considered just waiting in the outskirts of the demonic prison colony, but the place made him sick inside. Probably because Angelus felt perfectly at home there and was egging him on not to miss a golden opportunity for a bit of torture and blood, trying to literally play devil's advocate, persuasively cooing in his inner ear that it was all in a good cause. _You can hurt the scientist bitch. Don't have to kill her. Think of what she did to Buffy. You'd be doing it for Buffy. For Buffy, for Buffy, for Buffy..._

When he felt himself weakening, he slammed the car into reverse and screeched out of the God-forsaken place. He checked the cell phone Cordelia was forcing him to carry. He thought it was on. Yes, it beeped when he flipped it open, and he thought it was on the loudest setting. He didn't know how to check that. Dammit, he needed to be able to hear it when Maggie made her call. If he was a betting man, he'd say it would be within 24 hours. Maybe he should just go back to Sunnydale and wait there. So he could handle things when Maggie decided to give the evidence he needed to shut the operation down. Maybe he should wait there to keep Spike's hands off Buffy until she came to her senses.

The cell phone rang in his hands and he yelped and tossed it away- then tried to snag it back. He juggled for a moment, finally grabbing it and feeling really glad that no one had been there to watch a Master Vampire act like a buffoon.

"Had enough so soon, Mags?" He answered harshly.

"Who's Mags, where are you, and did you know you sound evil? You didn't have sex with Buffy again, did you? Because if you did, I swear I am going to sew her legs together, I mean what the hell is -"

"Cordelia!" Angel finally shouted because quieter repetitions of her name had done nothing to stem the torrent of words.

"What- huh?" Cordelia sounded surprised to have been stopped.

"Buffy's in trouble. I had to go to Sunnydale and then this place in the desert. I don't know when I'll be back, Buffy still needs my help." He pulled over for a minute, even though he knew he had to stop wasting time if he wanted to get to Sunnydale before daylight.

"Trouble, huh? What are we talking about, apocalypse?"

"No, just-"

"Big demon? Large quantity of demons?"

"No, Cordelia-"

"Is she paying you?"

"Of course not!"

"Then you better get your pale but Chippendale worthy behind back here!"

"She was attacked, she has no memory and she's not acting like herself."

"Then she doesn't remember you, she won't even miss you." Cordelia said dismissively. " Mrs. Lowenstein, whose guest bedroom has a disembodied head screaming in it, on the other hand-"

"How can you be so uncaring? She's helpless! She doesn't have a clue what she's doing or who she's doing it with!" Images of a naked Buffy, cuddled to Spike, the smug bastard, assailed him.

"She doesn't have slayer powers? Or remember she's a slayer?" Cordelia sounded horrified now.

"No, she does. She knows." Angel conceded unwillingly.

"Back to not seeing the problem."

"She knows she's a slayer and she has powers- but she's using them with Spike!"

"I hate that guy. Someone should tell him hair like that went out in the seventies. Early eighties at best. Plus, him torturing you..."

"Yeah, that was the winner in my mind." Angel mumbled.

"So, Buffy's evil?"

"NO! Spike's- ugh- good. _Acting_ good."

There was a pause. "I guess I can see that. I mean, he acted good before, when _you_ were evil. You guys aren't taking turns are you? 'Cause you sounded pretty No-Soul Boy when you answered. Oh, who's Mags?"

"Cordelia, listen. I can't go into all of this now. I need to get back to Sunnydale before dawn.

"That's hours away! Where _are_you?"

"I'm in the middle of the desert, okay?" Angel was wondering- as he did on a daily basis, exactly why he'd decided to work with the bossy brunette. "And- and I need to hang up and drive."

"I don't see why you're going back there." Cordelia said petulantly. "I mean, Buffy doesn't know you, and you couldn't be together anyway, and all the Scoobies are there, right? They can handle things without you. Hell, we handled _you_, Buster."

Her words struck angry little blows in his mind. How could she say that? Buffy needed him. Always needed him. He needed her. She was his redemption, the one he wanted to help, why he'd left the shadows, so he could do something good, not just stop being bad. Of course, _Cordelia_ was the one who broadened that whole idea, making it a career instead of a hobby.

"Angel? Angel?"

"She and Spike both lost their memories. They think they're in love. Ha- more than in love. Engaged. Getting married and playing house in _my_old mansion. Well- where I lived, anyway." Angel sounded deeply offended and wounded.

Cordelia's screech made him juggle the phone once more. "She's getting married? Before me? Oh, my God. If my old friends- the ones who haven't died- find out about this..."

"_That__'__s_ what worries you? That she's getting married first? She's marrying _Spike_. William the Bloody."

"Does Drusilla know? Did she have a big ring?"

"I don't know! I don't care! Cordelia, are you listening to what I'm saying?"

"Yeah. Spike thinks he's good, Buffy knows she's the Slayer, they bumped their heads and now they're working together to fight evil in Sunnydale, yadda yadda, and they're getting married. She always had really stupid taste in clothes, and men are just one step above that. Well, the accent is pretty hot. And on him the bleached look could work- with those cheekbones." Cordelia stopped, apparently mentally calculating whether or not Spike was a decent fashion risk. She came back at the strangled, frustrated noise on the other end of the phone. "What's_your_problem with it?"

Angel came close to crushing the phone in his frustration, but instead forced three deep breaths in and out- it didn't help since he wasn't actually experiencing the physical symptoms of stress, but it made him stop before destroying the cell phone they couldn't really afford. "What's my problem? My problem is-" He licked his lips and felt his soul twist and pour its hurt into words that flowed out. "The problem is, I love her, I can't have her, and I can't even help her when she really needs me. She doesn't even_want_me to help her, she doesn't think she needs me. And I-" He swallowed. "I screwed up, Cordy. I lost my chance with her, and I'm not getting it back now. I know it already, and the only way I can help is working on the person who took her mind- the 'Mags' I mentioned." He sighed an anguished sigh. "She doesn't love me. She doesn't need me. And I'm wondering if she ever did when I see- when I see that Spike and Giles know her better than I do, probably better than I ever did..." He trailed off. So that was love. Not smart, not safe, and hurt like a bitch. "Maybe Spike had always known something I haven't, and that was- that was why he's about to have the life I wanted but decided wasn't fair to have. Little bastard doesn't care about fair. He cares about love. And so does she." He swallowed, all talked out.

There was a stunned silence for a second. "That is the most amount of words I have ever herd you say."

"Yeah, well..."

"Angel- did you just- 'open up' to me?" She sounded amazed.

"I don't know." He shifted uncomfortably and slowly put the car back in gear, feeling calm enough to drive and hold the damn modern convenience to his ear. "If opening up makes you feel weird, sorta sick, and kinda stupid, then yeah, that's what I did."

"That's it exactly. At least the first couple times." She smiled. Then sobered. "I'm sorry, Angel. I'm sorry about Buffy. I'm glad you're helping her with the mind-stealing person- you need to explain that later, by the way- and I'm sorry- about her being with Spike. Watching someone you love with someone else is a bitch." Cordelia winced at the memory of Xander and Willow.

"I thought she'd still need my help. That I could still do something for her, even if we weren't a couple anymore. Like at Thanksgiving."

Cordelia snorted. "You know what? I think Sunnydale is a one superhero town. And you- well- you're larger than life. You're the dark avenger of the innocent."

"I am _not_ wearing a cape, Cordy."

"I'm trying to comfort you, you nitwit."

Angel smiled for the first time in days. "Sorry."

"Look- you're smart enough to admit to yourself that she doesn't need you in her life right now. Yeah, it sucks, but that's okay."

"I'm sorry, how is that okay?" He scoffed.

"Because- I need you. You know?" Cordelia got up from her bed, pacing in her pajamas as she felt the uncomfortable sensation of thinking about others trying to emerge from her self-absorbed brain. "I mean, I'm here all by myself. I would have been vampire dinner my first month in LA if you hadn't saved me. And now there's no Doyle, and I'm here by myself and- and I really don't know what to do with all these people and their problems, because people's problems besides mine? _So_ not my deal." She blushed at herself, listening to her almost gooey tone of voice. She toughened it, adding, "And I really,_really_ do not know what to do with the screamy head in Mrs. Lowenstein's guest bedroom. Which, she says she needs us to look at like, super fast, because her sister's eldest's girlfriend's college roommate is flying in from Portland in two days."

Angel laughed again, in spite of himself, in spite of all the pain.

"So, are you going to brood over what you lost, or get your ghost busting suit on?"

"I'll be there in a few hours." Angel took the south bound fork of the highway, back towards LA. "I still have to take care of this other situation though. But I think I have time to save Mrs. Lowenstein's sister's eldest's girlfriend's college roommate from Portland first."

"That's fair." Cordelia sighed. "I'll call her back right now. She'll be up. It's screaming pretty loudly, apparently."

"Yeah? Give me the address, I'll go straight there, I guess." Angel shrugged further into his black overcoat, feeling suddenly tired.

"You're the best! My hero!" Cordelia gushed and gave him the address.

Angel prepared to hang up, a slow bemused smile spreading across his face. _Oh well. I still have a damsel in distress I guess. Even if the damsel is only distressed because unless I get back and work she won't get paid and be able to buy new shoes..._

"Aren't you going to say goodbye?" Cordelia's voice sounded hurt.

"Oh. Yeah. Sorry. Bye, Cordy, see you soon."

"Bye, Angel. Um. Thanks."

"For what?" He blinked in surprise. Cordelia wasn't overly big on saying thank you, but then again, his own social skills were completely lacking.

"Coming home. Duh." She hung up, eyes rolling.

Angel laughed aloud as he drove into the darkness. Home, huh? Yeah. Maybe home. No, _definitely_ home. Because home is where they need you. His heart contracted in pain at the thought of the girl who no longer needed him, people who had well and truly learned to deal without him, especially since he had forced them to do it on multiple occasions, by his soullessness, by his forced absence, and finally by simply leaving town.

"I guess we'll consider this something I owe. Taking care of Walsh can take away some of the huge debt I have with all of them. And it's not like I'll never go back, when she does need my help. For apocalypses, or big demons, or large quantities of demons." He muttered, unconsciously repeating Cordelia's words.

Angel looked at the green highway sign. Los Angeles,164 miles. He passed under it. _I'm on my way home, to someone who needs me, to a town that needs help. I can go back to Sunnydale again, someday_. His brows suddenly pressed together and he scowled. _But I'm sure as hell not going back to that mansion._

_Earlier that night..._

"Did you get the tub filled up yet?" Buffy came back from their small, dark bedroom, to the bathroom, finding a shirtless Spike kneeling on the floor lighting one of the few candles they'd packed the previous night.

"Almost. Did you find something to eat?"

"Yep. PB and B."

"Peanut butter and..."

"Bread."

"So a peanut butter sandwich. Luv, you can't live off that." Spike stood up and looked at her with a mild frown.

"I can for one night. Or two or three." Buffy pouted, and crossed to his side, winding her slender arms around his neck.

"I don't like it, Slayer. You need your strength."

"Well, so do you. What are you going to do about blood? You didn't stop and buy any, and you're going to be out after one more bag."

"Can't die from it." Spike shrugged. "An' I'm not hungry. Not for food anyway."

Buffy giggled and let him pick her up wrapping her ankles around his waist. "I'm more comfortable in here than anywhere else I've been with you." She admitted. "Weird, huh?"

"I don't think so. This is the only place we made ours. In spite of everything, it doesn't feel too bad. Not here or in our room anyway." He kissed her, and in the silence of their embrace, both pretended they didn't feel the eerie pain of the downstairs rooms. They were safe, at least here.

"I like that. Making it ours. In spite of everything, this is just about you and me." Buffy pushed her legs down for the purpose of standing and unzipping her black slacks.

"You've had such a bloody awful day." Spike sighed and caressed her neck. "A whole bunch of bloody awful days in a row, actually."

"You haven't been having a picnic either." Buffy let him work her shirt slowly over her head. "I was thinking- you probably were disappointed in me earlier, weren't you?"

"Great. Your brain's malfunctionin' again, Slayer." Spike prodded her bare stomach. "I'm never disappointed in you, you're my girl."

"I totally bailed when things got bad with my mother."

"We already talked about that, Poppet. You needed a break. Hell, I needed a break, an' she wasn't even my mum."

"That's why I'm mad at myself. You really miss your mom, and you can't remember her, and she's not here anymore. So there isn't a second chance. I got one. You didn't." Buffy's eyes welled up. "I'm so sorry, Baby."

Spike swallowed and brought his forehead to hers, staring into her eyes, large pools of black pupil with a flare of green edging in the dimness. "Now you listen to me." Spike spoke sternly, but softly, his hands cupping and kneading her neck. "I do miss my mum, and you did, too. Who's to say my mum an' I would have hit it off any better? She prolly didn't know I was a vampire, an' I can't imagine she'd be thrilled."

"But at least-"

Spike kissed her hard and then pulled back, keeping her silent for another second. "But at least I am gettin' a second chance. At livin' life, such as it is for me. I have my second chance. And it's you, Slayer. Memories are a mixed bag, yeah? Good an' bad, all waitin' to spring out at you." She nodded emphatically, delicate column of her throat sliding between his thumbs. "This future with you- well, that's all good, Luv. That's bloody fantastic, Slayer."

"You'd still trade what you lost in a century for a couple years with me?" Buffy couldn't really wrap her head around that. So much to lose. Even eighteen years seemed like a lot, and yes, she'd trade it for him, but a century and more? For her?

"Yes. I'd trade my century for a couple _days_ with you."

"Spike..." She sighed, pulling him to her more tightly. "I love you. I do. And everything is going to be okay now. Everyone knows it's either both of us or none of us. It's going to be okay, right?"

"Slayer- it was always going to be okay. As long as we were together." He smiled into her eyes. "An' tonight it's just us."

Buffy licked her lips, and his because they were so close to her own. "No one knows where we are- that would bother us, I mean."

"No lights on to announce us to the soddin' nosy parkers around here." Spike snarled softly, nibbling her bottom lip.

"It's like the cave... only with plumbing." She giggled.

"Oh, that was a lovely spot." He grimaced at the memory of the place they'd been hiding after they'd first been attacked.

"Hey, that's a special place now. I know when we have our little story telling sessions, that we had this beautiful romantic first time, but-"

"But it was in that bloody cave." Spike shook his head, still nipping gently at her lips, now heading down her neck as well. "You deserved more than that. Better than that."

"But it was with you." Buffy leaned into his lips, gasping slightly when they touched her sealed puncture wounds. "That's the best."

"One helluva woman." Spike sighed. "Slayer. Toughest, softest, meanest, sweetest girl in the world."

"I sound very confusing."

"Oh no, Luv. You don't confuse me at all." Spike lapped at her bites before pulling back and looking in her eyes.

"I seem to confuse everyone else." She said with a sudden change of tone. "Even my ex and my mom seem to think I should act one way and I don't, apparently never did..."

"Shush. This night is for me an' you. No one else. Like that cave. Remember? Jus' you an' me. Alone. In the dark." Each phrase a little more intense, each tone a share more persuasive, pulling her into that deep, dark safety net of each other, and only each other.

"I love that now. That it was just us. It hurt so much, it was so confusing, but now I know we would have been safe as long as we were together. Then we come back into the world and- and we have terrible, broken pasts we have to relearn. People we have to remember. People who should love you unconditionally, but... feels like they only love you on their terms."

"Poppet, don't think that way, it's jus' thrown 'em for a loop. Everyone came round..."

"Spike?"

"Yes, Luv?"

"Why don't I confuse you? I even confuse myself." Buffy suddenly sniffled.

"Oh, Slayer. That's simple." Spike gave her cocky half-smile, one he didn't know used to drive her crazy, one that she now loved.

"Oh, yeah? Enlighten me."

"You don't confuse me, 'cause you're the one thing I know. As far as I was concerned, for the longest hours of my unlife, you were the _only_ thing I knew. Bugger this crazy world, Luv, _you_were my world. An' you still are."

Buffy's chest heaved once as she felt a rush of confidence and relief flood her. "You're my world. You were and you still are. You're my future."

"We just keep goin', Luv, as long as we keep goin' together."

Buffy cupped his cheeks in strong, petite hands. "Sometimes it's good to remember what matters. You and I- we matter. Nothing else. As long as we have a place to be together."

"Which we do, an' we will. Promise you."

"Right now, I just want to enjoy this, Spike. When we're it. Nothing else exists, no angry exes or upset mothers, or past sins..." She kissed him hard, biting his upper lip and then down his jaw, down his chest, pausing when she got to the cold, silent hollow under his unbeating heart. "Would it be really wrong of me to ask you- to make me forget everything but us? Just for tonight?" Her dark green eyes beseeched him.

"No, Luv, nothin' you ask me is wrong. I'll make you forget everythin' you don't want to think about tonight, an' give you a hundred reasons to think about the future."

"Oooh, I like the sound of that." She continued her kissing spiral, landing on each rib. "Here're reasons one through eight." She teased.

Spike cupped his hardness and nudged it against her breast as she sank even lower. "An' does this count as one big reason, or are we gonna go by inches?"

"Neither. We're going to go by how much I love it." Buffy whispered, a sudden primal rush of adrenaline hitting her when her mouth trailed below his navel. "This is a very big number of reasons." She paused and licked her lips, looking up at him, wanting to ask if he felt it, too.

"Rough day. Slayer's been under stress." He stroked her hair, and his blue eyes suddenly seemed to flame wickedly. "Had to hold it in, didn't you, Pet?"

Buffy licked her lips again, thinking. She supposed she had tried very hard to act like a good, "normal" girl for the most stressful part of the day. And her method of dealing with the strain? Crying and talking. Not a very slayer-y thing to do. "You had to act the same way I did. You held it in."

"Are you tired of holdin' it in, Luv?" Spike pressed on hand firmly onto the back of her head.

"God, yes." She dove, the wicked gleam in his eyes transferring to hers. She devoured him, gobbled him down with a feral moan. This was how the Slayer wanted it. Alone. In the dark. Nothing but surviving in mind. And yes- this particular Slayer wanted to end the loneliness, take alone from meaning 'solo' and change it into alone, meaning 'just the two of us'.

Spike roared an inhuman bellow that made Buffy moan in reply. That was what he wanted. The hard, the fast, the animalistic, everything he'd known but couldn't remember seeing his Slayer possessed of. In the past he knew it had been triggered by fighting him, not loving him, but now... God, it was just so bloody good.

"Sexy beast." She purred.

"My little wildcat." He snarled, urging her up from his throbbing member, even though he didn't want to. "Water's getting cold."

"But- I don't need anything but you tonight." She protested between his heated kisses as she was dragged further into his arms.

"You'll get me." Spike sloshed them into the tub, kicking the antique plug out with his toes as he did so. "Less water on the floor when I'm done with you."

"Never be done with me. I don't ever want you to be done with me. I've apparently had way too much being left in my short little life."

"And once is enough in any amount of years." Spike agreed. He replaced the plug when about a third of the water had gurgled away, and set his blonde nymph in the bath. "All I meant was, you've had a hard day, should have your nice hot bath."

"And a nice cool something else." She winked, and sat up on her knees.

"Oh, I do love you." Spike groaned and let her take hold of his rod in one small hand, fingers curling hard over it, owning him.

"What did you say the other night? I can dish it out- but I still want to take it?"

"From the right man. Jesus..." Spike winced in pleasure as she engulfed him in her hot, scraping mouth. She was doing it hard, wild, for him. Biting, sucking, stroking with hard tugs. "Good sweet bloody Jesus..." He closed his eyes in bliss.

"So when I'm done dishing this out- I still want to take it." She grinned up at him. Safe, alone, and warm- it should be so sweet and soft and romantic. Her normal side seemed to protest, tell her to slow down. And she didn't want to listen. Memories of what she was supposed to do, and who with, all tried to struggle to the surface.

Spike pushed them away with his deep, demonic chuckle. "Oh, Slayer, I'll let you take it, plenty."

"Am I- am I doing this right?" She suddenly asked, slowing, head lifting.

"Fantastic, Pet." He leaned his head back, but his eyes swept down, looking at her face in puzzlement.

"Not that, but thanks- no, this. All of this. Am I doing it right?"

Spike pushed her mouth farther from him, and knelt, putting his strong sinewy fingers against the soft, firm flanks of her rear. "Listen to me. You an' me? We're all we got, an' all we want, right?"

"Yes." She breathed.

"Then it's perfect. Bloody perfect. However you are, whatever you are, it's you an' me, Luv. I'll walk with you on the wild side, I'll build you that white picket fence if I can. You said you finally found someone for your slayer side to play with, an' he's not goin' anywhere."

"The slayer part of me didn't go away, not even with all they did." She laughed ruefully.

"Good." Spike surprised her with his blunt statement. " 'Cause then my girl an' I wouldn't be about to have the most glorious shag fest in the history of the world, starting in this bathtub, moving to the tiles, then across the way, against the door, on the bed, on the floor..." He teasingly ran his hands all over her wet skin, mischief in his eyes.

"I am totally in love with you. Like it or not." Buffy sighed.

"Oh, I love it, and the rest of the world can fuck off if they don't."

"I'm glad I woke up next to you that night, in the cave." Buffy leaned into him, letting him grip her hips harder, sensing his unneeded breathing starting to speed up.

"Could've fooled me, Slayer." He laughed softly.

"Shush. I was about to say one more sweet thing before I unleash the beast." She stroked his hair lovingly while her other hand was stroking lower, in a much naughtier fashion.

"Sorry, Poppet. Speak on."

"I'm glad I woke up beside you, and that you've been with me. You're what I need, Spike."

"Course I am." He grinned savagely.

"Mr. Ego." She giggled.

"No, Pet. Of course I'm what you need, 'cause I'm the only one with a half for each of your halves. Sweet Spike for my sweet girl-" He let his face morph into harder, ridged planes, golden eyes full of fire under malevolent brow, "and a vampire for my Slayer."

"Oh, God yeah. That's why." His hands hardened as well as his face, and unbeknownst to her, her own face hardened and her eyes glinted, the face she wore each night alone, her kill or be killed face. For the first time since her calling, she wore it out of another kind of fire. Primal forces on both sides unleashed and prepared to dance.

"What was it you told me? You like to be marked, proud to be loved?" Buffy looked up with a sudden flash of impishness.

"Only seems fair..."Spike's mouth roved to her neck, finding his bites, " since I've got you so nice an' pretty."

"Just making sure." Buffy pounced on him suddenly, her wrists crossing behind his neck, elbows on his shoulders, and her legs against his. "My Spike."

"My Slayer." He skated his fingers down and against her sex, parting her to receive him, which she did in one solid, wet thrust.

Buffy threw her head back and let him fill her, almost painfully, how hard, how fast she'd gone from closed to jammed full. And the wild part inside her loved it- the rawness, the realness. She slid her hips against his, grinding as soon as she'd gotten herself comfortable enough to rotate on something splitting her so neatly in half.

His roar made the water ripple and his Slayer dance on him, nails digging into shoulders, heels skidding against the back of his thighs. Wild tempo of her rocking little pelvis and her double time heart beat making him crazy, until the pulsing was all he could feel, all he could bear. She was so close to him, pressed up to his chest, in his arms, that slamming rhythm against him from groin to neck. For a second he thought he remembered what it felt like to be alive, like her body had merged with his, like he could feel his own blood flowing and heart beating.

"You make me come alive, Pet." He gasped into her hair, eyes closed in ecstasy.

She couldn't speak through her clenched teeth at first. She was so focused on him- the feel of his arms, the slick spaces between them, the crash of his hard chest to her softer one. "You make me feel real." She paused long enough to look at him. "Without you, this world is just foggy, some old photos and a lot of pain and confusion."

"This world _is_real, the one we're gonna make for ourselves, Slayer."

Buffy arched up against him, nodding her agreement. Spike lost his power of speech as the vampiric instinct went wild, looking at her taut neck, and following it down to her pert breasts, topped with indescribably tight little pebbles from the cooling water and the friction of their bodies.

He paused when he felt his fangs sharply sting inside his mouth, hungry for her. _Wait, wait. You let the monster rule the first half of your unlife, you got a second chance. The man rules this half._

"You didn't eat tonight." Buffy tipped her head back up, watching his jaw tightening and his face clouding, even as he continued ravishing her.

"Don't need to." He answered in a growl.

"But you want to."

"No. I'm fine." He said firmly, moving his head languidly to hers even though the temptation was killing him afresh.

"I don't mind." Buffy whispered. Far from minding, she would love it, it would curl her blood into a fountain that beat out an orgasm spanning throat to toes.

"You're not food. Humans aren't dinner anymore. So I can have this world with you, Luv, I gotta remember what I really want. Which is you, with me."

"Spike." Buffy traced his mouth, dipping inside it suddenly with one fingertip. She gave him an intense, half lidded stare as his tongue slowly wound around her digit and suckled on it. She made a little whimper, recalling how good it felt when that tongue twirled on other parts of her. "You're in my world. You _are_ my world. And this is half of you, just like the slayer is half of me." He opened his mouth and she hooked her finger fiercely into his lower jaw, closing it around her finger once again. "Let the vampire have someone to play with. You won't hurt me. I won't hurt you..." She licked her lips seductively, slowly. "Tonight we survive, we're the sexy beasts and wildcats."

"I know, Baby. I know." Spike worked a second of her fingers in his mouth and danced his tongue slowly up and down their length mimicking what she did to him in other places.

"Drink." She tossed the damp honey waterfall of her hair over her shoulder and tipped her head even further back, letting the ends float in the water. "From me."

It was a blur, a sudden lunge and punch, and the teeth broke wet, silken soft skin. He'd bit harder than he'd ever done, bitten like a vampire that was hungry, not one in love. It scared him at first, his eyes widened after the initial joy of blood soaking his tongue.

But then her hands came up and weaved into his hair, pressing him in harder, harder, harder, chanting his name softly, moaning in sucked viciously and felt her pussy clamp down on him in reply, sucking just as mercilessly. "Bloody fuck!" He gasped out, lifting his mouth with a shudder of pleasure."Sweet bloody fuck!"

"Apparently." Buffy's voice was a cross between amused and orgasmic. She looked up lazily, watching blood stained lips gaping as she came around him, rivulets of blood making their way from his mouth to his ivory shoulders. _That's what a warrior looks like. That's what a slayer needs. What I will have. And I won't be like the others, dead at twenty, because I'll be the one, the only one, to have what I need to survive._

"Alright?" He managed to ask hoarsely, lapping up the traces trailing from his mouth.

"You full?"She challenged.

"What are you playin', Slayer?" He laughed gently, shaking his head.

"You're hungry. We're 'surviving'."

"You're not food!"

"But I do like to be _eaten_." She said saucily, rubbing her neck and then letting her hand slide down to her nub, faint streaks of scarlet going with her.

His eyes followed, he felt a sudden twist inside him, like he was going to blow any second, and he lost it. Not self control- just reservations. "Never hurt you." He snarled and they slammed back, barely keeping her shoulders above water, her head sliding halfway down the porcelain back of the tub.

"I know. Believe me, this doesn't hurt." She grinned wickedly, and pulled him down to her again.

Bites, hard and fast, from her neck to her breast to her thigh, to the soft padding on top of her mound, fangs in the fleshy part, while tongue and mouth sucked down on her nub and folds. She screamed his name and let her eyes rolls back in pleasure.

Claw marks, on his jaw, his neck, his shoulders, hands scraping and digging on his forearms and wrists until her fingers locked with his and yanked him back up, on top of her, their hands making a rough, restless arch over their heads as they slammed into each other. He hissed out her name and let his human face resurface.

They churned the water in their frenzy, pounding together until the water made the steady lapping sounds of waves in a storm.

Buffy looked up at this man, this vampire, her two halves to make one whole. He was all she could see, and the rest of the world was blotted out, just for a little while.

Spike looked down on the innocent girl and the wanton goddess he had fallen so firmly in love with. Twice the woman any other could ever be, because she was alive enough, strong enough, passionate enough for two. She had the heart for both of them, a soul enough for both of them. His jaw moved, but no words came out. What the hell could he say, that he hadn't already said, that would ever tell her just how much she meant to him? And then, like the hero she seemed destined to be, she solved the problem.

"Love you." She mouthed, right before she released with a full body clench that pinned them together.

"Love you." He whispered against her ear, head crashing alongside of hers in the throes of his own climax.

There was silence, except for her labored breathing, the guttering of newly wet candles, and the water rippling as it returned to relative stillness. "Think we're gonna need another bath." Spike murmured when he finally could bear to push himself from her.

Buffy stretched languorously and smiled up at him, satisfaction on her face mirrored on his own.

"It's okay. That was just what we needed." She ran a toe down his scratched and laved chest.

He chuckled and caught her ankle, pulling her forward, into his lap as he sank back into the frothed tub. "I agree. But you need more."

"Mmmm, I like the sound of that." She laughed with him, letting herself curl into a ball on his chest.

"Good, 'cause I had a list. Let's see, how'd it go? Tub, tiles, floor, bed?"

"You left out against the door." She reminded helpfully, a twinkle in her eye.

"An' of course there's several feet of space between this room an' the bedroom."

"Right, can't forget the hallway."

"No, mustn't neglect the hallway." Spike teased. "Gotta christen as much of our limited little temporary home as we can."

"Oh, Baby. Home is where the Spike is." Buffy sat up and kissed him. She looked down at her obviously much loved body and grinned. "I'd say we did a good job 'christening'."

"Ah ah ah, you misquoted. Home is where the heart is- an' you're the one with the functioning heart, so-"

"Hey, your heart functions! It loves. Beating is optional." She pouted. He seized her lip in a kiss, unable to resist her pouting mouth.

"In which case-" Spike hugged her hard, not overly sexually, just to feel her and hold her, realize he had what he needed now and for the rest of his time on this earth, "welcome home, Slayer."

Buffy hugged him, relief prickling her eyes and wiping out, really wiping out the sadness she'd felt, the sense of being lost and confused. "It's good to be home." She sighed.

_To be continued..._


	17. Chapter 17

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Notes: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Dedicated to DLillith21, ginar369, Lil-Leti, Captain Peroxide, Vera Snape-Evans, Arshes13, kim kelly,trashyfiction, Fanficfemale, McPastey, and Little Missy123 _

_**Author's notes:** Okay- we jump around a lot, a lot of little bits, because we're moving this story towards it's finish in a few chapters. Hang on, this chapter is bumpy, but it paves the way for the next one._

_Thank you for your support! **This ****story ****has ****been ****nominated ****at ****The ****Sunnydale ****Memorial ****Fanfiction ****Awards,**(located at __sunnyd awards dot dragony dreams dot com __index dot html) in the following categories:_

_Best New Author, Best Drama, Best Pairing Conventional, Best Unfinished_

_**If you like it, please go vote for it!**_

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part XVII

Buffy's memory teased her as she slept. In her sleep, a small frown pushed her lips down and her brows angrily arched and quivered.

Beside her, arm draped across her waist, the pale bleached blonde vampire who loved her wholeheartedly, snorted huffily in his slumber and made a sarcastic muttered insult.

Buffy rolled forward, bumped her head lightly to a smooth hard jaw and blinked her eyes a few times, more and more puzzled with each blink.

Spike heard the heartbeat in the room racing along, strong enough and insistent enough to wake him up, different from the steady white noise of shallow even breathing and a slow double time thump of blood going through arteries. "Hm? Whazit?" He mumbled, one eye opening.

"Spike?" Buffy's voice sounded troubled.

His sounded nervous. "Slayer?"

"Uh...uh... guess what?"

"What?" Spike remained unmoving.

"Guess what I remembered?" Buffy suddenly jerked her head back and up, staring into his blue eyes with fierce hazel green. His mouth opened and she cut him off. "You and I don't get along."

Spike sat up, speaking in the same vehement tone. "Didn't. Past tense." He spat.

"You were such a- a ughhhh! Oh my God! The things you said to me! Tried to do!"

"You were a prissy little stuck up bitch. Never thought past the end of your short skirts." Spike glowered.

"How far back did you remember?" She demanded.

"Dunno. Too bloody far- but only about you!" He growled.

"Same!" Buffy spat, sitting up fully, and gasping as the sheet fell down revealing healing bite marks and bruises on her nude torso. She reached down to yank her covers up, and Spike's hand froze her wrist in place.

"Slayer." He loosened his grip, pain replacing all the fury in his face. "Slayer?"

His touch jolted her back to the present. The reality, the new life she could choose, versus the old life she could mourn for. "You're still mine?" She whispered, looking at the cream fingers on her tanned skin.

"God, yes, Poppet. All in the past, wasn't it?" He pleaded.

Buffy flung herself down to his chest, holding him tight. "I didn't know you. I didn't try, I just hated you and - and you were worth hating, Baby."

"Shhh. I know. Messed up. An' you always messed me up." He clutched her. "Saw her face. That Drusilla." Briefly, beautiful and dark- and eliciting nothing from him, no more than any other pretty face he'd pass in a hundred years. His memories were coming back- the ones of what mattered to him now. Slayer.

"Yeah?" Buffy winced inside. A century of one woman ruling your heart, how could she compete with that?

"Not a patch on you." He whispered in her hair.

Buffy forced herself up again, this time wiggling so their faces were lined up, eye to eye, lips to lips. "I didn't know if you could still- you know, love me." She spoke softly.

"We said the past didn't matter. Knew what we did."

"But I saw it. I didn't know- if I could still love you."

Spike's faint touch of color drained completely away. "But-" What could he say? Memories made touches of the old emotions flare up, but it was like the flame of a flipped lighter compared to a forest fire. He'd shouted, he'd gotten mad and pissed off, just for a second, until the present reasserted itself. It was still like looking back at some horrible old film, just so happened he'd had a starring role in it. "But-" The words failed again.

She didn't them. "I know. I know what we said, but when I woke up- it's so- it's just right in front of you and everything's blurry. What matters and what doesn't."

"But it doesn't matter, does it? It's old, it's dead, it doesn't have to make us, Slayer." Spike encouraged urgently. "That isn't me anymore, I promise."

"Am I still the prissy stuck up bitch?" Buffy asked, a hint of teasing in her voice.

"Dunno. Don't think so. Don't really care." Spike grabbed her arms and pinned her under him, looking down adoringly at her. "You're my world, whatever you are."

Fire flooded through her, the good kind, not the angry kind. That face, intense in battle against her, so intense in the battle for her. She looked him over, all the marks on each other, and apparently the marks inside each other. "I needed this. Needed you." She reassured.

"Show me." He ground out raspily.

"Let me go, and I will."She tugged her hands in his firm grip.

"No. You're the Slayer. You've taken me on before. Remember one thing real clear about you, Luv." He beamed down at her. "Absolutely bloody love watchin' you fight. I'm gonna like it better now that I won't end up severely injured."

Buffy used her strong legs to lock his down and rolled over on top of him. She still didn't have her hands free, but she didn't need them. "Well- not severely." She whispered, bitting his lip as she kissed him.

"Slayer." He moaned pleasurably, feeling her soft chest grinding to his hard one. "Knew you were resourceful. Always knew that."

"You really don't care about the old us?" Buffy stopped peppering kisses across his shoulders to look at him gravely.

"No. I care about you an' me, like we are now. I know I got flashes of our lives crossin', nothin' in order, nothin' too detailed. But all about you, Baby."

"Same."

"An' what does that tell you?"

"Our hippocampuses- hippoocampi- brain thingys - are starting to heal?" She hazarded.

"Yeah- an' that we're what really matters. Us." He freed one of her hands so he could use his own to stroke back her hair.

"It feels like I should care about other things more, remember them first." She confessed.

"No. See, this is the real us, Luv. We got no restrictions, no self-doubts." He gazed into her eyes, clear crystals of mossy color that showed so much about her. "You are who you are, built from what you know in your gut an' heart, not what you oughta know. Not what you oughta remember."

"Just like you."

"Yeah, guess so. In it together. An' there's no more jack-in-the-box waitin' to show us the uglies. Not about us together."

"There might be more." She reminded him. "We're not all better."

"But I know I didn't like you. Know I bloody well hated you, an' it was mutual."

Buffy considered. "It's one thing reading about it- another thing to see it in your head, feel what you felt- and then realize it still just feels like someone else's old home movies."

"Great minds think alike." Spike praised. He let go of her completely, fire mellowing into a comforting glow. He just wanted to hold her, be glad the big nasties in their own minds hadn't ruined the best thing he'd ever had.

"So it's not just promising to deal with it. It's knowing- and totally not needing to deal with it." Buffy murmured, head tucked under his chin now.

"Put one way, yeah." Spike ran his hands lovingly over her back.

"No one can throw any more excuses at us. Why we can't love, or shouldn't love each other."

They slowly tilted their heads until eyes relocked. "We win." Buffy beamed.

"Told you we would. That's the one big hurdle we were waitin' on." He beamed back.

"Good." Buffy sat up briskly, suddenly, earning a moan of loss from her partner. "Now we get to get on with the rest of the little hurdles. Stopping these commando idiots, finding jobs, an apartment, planning a wedding,- and finding my engagement ring, dammit!"

Spike laughed and rested a hand on either of her hips. "Little hurdles indeed."

"Compared to what they did to us? Pssht. Piece a cake." She leaned into him. "Nothing is gonna stop us."

"Nothing was _ever_ gonna stop us." He smirked.

"Oh yeah- the attitude. I love that about you." Buffy winked.

"C'mere an' show me." He repeated his words from earlier.

Buffy got a naughty look in her eye and prepared to lunge at him. Then stopped, and leaned forward slowly, kissing him gently, deeply, like she would never, ever stop, no matter what. She might not have, but Spike moved her chin just a bit, letting her breathe. "See?" She whispered.

"I see." Spike nodded. He saw. Love for them should be very complicated, full of enemies and threats and rights and wrongs. But it wasn't, if you didn't let all the bullshit get in the way. Two people were in love. Simple. He took a minute to kiss her back, again not stoping until she needed air. "Love you, Buffy."

"Love you, Spike." She stroked his face. "Always will."

* * *

><p>"Must she always be late? Do you know I'm getting an ulcer?" Giles paced and confronted Willow, Anya, and Xander as they sat on his couch. "Time to recuperate, yes, but this situation is far from resolved. An-and I assume they're safe at the mansion but I haven't heard. Why must she always be late?"<p>

"That's the most I've ever heard him say." Anya looked at him admiringly. "I'm sorry about your ulcer. If you stopped your steady liquid diet of alcohol and caffeine it might help."

"Ahn- don't help. He's ranting." Xander whispered. "They'll be here soon. It's daylight, maybe they just didn't want to come out in the equivalent of Spike- EZ-Bake weather."

"Are you kidding? They have a huge mansion to themselves. If you only had sex in each room once- hmm, if we count the closets and all sofas, beds, and firm flat surfaces-"

"Erggh! Anya, stop, please!" Willow yelped. "I'm sure they're not- okay, I'm sure they _are_, but errgh. Just- don't, okay?"

"I thought you good guys valued honesty." Anya muttered moodily and returned to her bag of potato chips.

"We do, Honey- just- not when it makes you have really scary mental images." Xander comforted.

"You know, if I had to tell my mom about something huge- well- I guess I kinda did with the witch thing- and then she tried to burn me at the stake- though that was spell related- ummm..." Willow winced and trailed off for a minute. "Anyway, the point is, sounds like the conversation with Joyce went kablooie and I'd be licking my wounds too."

Anya thought about mentioning that Spike would lovingly lick the wounds of his mate, it was demonically, animalisticly instinctive, but stopped herself. "Psychological wounds, right?"

"Right." Giles shook his head. "But things were better by the end. Joyce was going to pop in tonight, see them before patrol."

Xander's eyes practically departed from his face."Wait, Joyce is okay with the Bride of Dracula stuff going down?"

"Yes. As are we all. Correct?" Giles glared at Xander.

"Hey, I'm gonna be front and center on the bride's side of the aisle." He proclaimed. "She's one of my bestest buds, and I'd follow her into hell- which this is, so..." He shrugged, "One for all, and all for one, and three for a dollar, all that jazz."

"Good. Good, that at least removes the threat of Buffy running from us out of mistrust. If only we could remove the threat of these blasted soldiers..."

* * *

><p>Riley jumped when the door opened- as he'd done for the last day and a half- ever since he'd sent the package. Funny how heavy a two pound plain brown envelope can feel as you carry it clear out of town, damn near out of the state, drop it into a mailbox you know no one will ever associate with you. Funny how one cassette, one disc, and a thick novel size stack of Walsh's most secret reports could feel like solid lead. Needless to say- he jumped.<p>

"What's bitin' you, man?" Gates laughed and dropped onto the couch in the Lowell House lounge beside Riley.

"Me? Nothing. Not a thing." Riley laughed uneasily.

"Is it 'cause little miss hot, blonde, and clumsy dropped off your radar screen?"

"Huh? What?" Riley tried not to looked panicked.

"Look, man." Gates looked saddened. "I know you're all clean cut an' Iowa good boy, but this fallin' in love thing? It ain't your bag. You been mopin' ever since she-"

"What are you talking about?" Riley jumped in, terrified of where Gates was going . Did he know? Had he noticed Buffy was gone from campus, or just that he wasn't talking about her anymore? Would he find out that she was the one, the girl they were still hunting for?

"You gotta cut this weak-ass pining. She's cute but she looks like some high maintenance fluffy bunny. What was her name again?"

"Oh, I'm not worried about her." Riley scoffed, lying through his teeth. "Think I have a bug. Or I could be stressed."

"You always worry too much, Bro. Those HSTs Leland lost? Walsh gets all up in arms, but she- you know how she is. It's no big thing." Gates reclined, boots on he coffee table. "They'll turn up. And if not-" He jerked his head towards the floor under their feet, "we got plenty more to try out the new equipment on."

Riley's stomach twisted in a sick knot. Plenty more to try out new equipment on? They really were running some kind of concentration camp, weren't they? Some mad lab, full of sentient beings they did "things" to. Or killed. Ot chopped up. Riley's stomach heaved.

Sentient beings, but evil. But when you torture the evil ones- aren't you just starting to turn wicked yourself? Riley felt his lunch try to make a repeat appearance and ran to the nearest bathroom. "Gotta go!"

Gates watched him race off, frown on his face. "Huh."

"Hey, man." Leland and Adams joined him on the sofa. "What's up?"

"I dunno. Uh- you might not want to crash there, though. Finn's tossin' his cookies, an' you're in his seat. He thinks he got a bug."

The men moved hastily away. "Flu? Or is bug code for hungover?" Adams asked.

"Not everyone is a total lightweight like you." Leland smacked his squad member, who'd so recently been found drunk on duty.

"It's just a bug. That's weird though. None of us ever get sick. Those good vitamins, man." Gates frowned.

"Maybe it's stress. He's such a Walsh's pet." Adams whispered.

"Why, 'cause he doesn't let the biggest catch of the year slip away?" Gates countered angrily.

"I don't see you getting them back." Leland got to his feet.

"Whoa. What's going on?" Graham, always the levelheaded one, came into the frat house in time to see two members of different squads looking like they were about to beat each other to death.

"Leland's squad screwed up." Gates glared unblinkingly at Leland.

"And Finn's squad is a bunch of A.K.s." Leland's fists tightened.

"Well, time to put on your big girl panties and deal with it, 'cause we have bigger problems." Graham's normally even voice had an unusually harsh edge to it. So hard and brittle that everyone froze and looked at him, wide eyed and worried.

"What's wrong?" Riley reemerged, a little paler, a little more hoarse than he'd been five minutes ago.

"Walsh. She never checked into the lab last night. Her car's not on campus." Graham looked around at the rapidly growing group of men who'd abandoned the television and foosball table to hear his announcement. "She's AWOL. Missing."

* * *

><p>"How is this possible? How is this <em>possible<em>? _Nothing_ was missing from our encryptions, we had fifty-eight years of military code-breaking and code-writing experience create the security for the Initiative." General Fremont banged his fists on the desk before him and looked at his aide. "How many people did it go to?"

"The entire email listserve, Sir." The aide murmured hoarsely.

"Dammit!" The General's impressively large fists came down again. "And how many of those didn't have Initiative security clearance?"

"Over two thousand, Sir."

"Oh, God." This time Fremont's head crashed to his desk along with his hands. "All internal at least? At least tell me it only went to military personnel?"

"Yes. No congressional staff, no 'politicians' have access. But the top brass-"

"I know. i know." Moaned Fremont.

Erm." The aide, DuVal, a young man, distantly related to General Fremont's mother-in-law, hand picked, fresh from West Point, looked decidedly worried. "Erm. The thing is, Sir? We can't trace this hacker. All the encryptions seem to have doubled and then changed- but-but that's not all. There's some strange-"

"Magic, DuVal."

"Oh, Sir, that's a lot of-"

"DuVal, did you ever even bother to crack a peeper at this nightmare breach?"

"Well... it wasn't my place, Sir, to know the business of-"

"Demons. Vampires, devils, hellbeasts, werewolves, succubi. All right there. Magic exists, son, and we've been trying to harness it for fifty some years. God damn, plebeians. This is the closest we've ever gotten."

DuVal gaped for a few silent seconds and then stammered, back on the subject of security, something he felt was more appropriate to discuss. "Th-the hacker, S-sir?"

"I told you. Magic. It'll have been one them damn demons with their fancy ways. Don't waste anymore time and resources on tracing it back, not right now." Fremont got to his feet and headed for his decanter.

"But the trail is going to get-"

"DuVal, the trail is going to sit there and rot, like our hides will do in some unpleasant unspecified location, if we don't move our asses and start defusing this bomb. Now, everyone is gonna want to hush this up, that won't be the problem."

"What's the problem then?" DuVal took the glass of bourbon he was offered and watched the general down his, neat, and start on a second.

"The human testing! Don't you read, boy? These are ground breaking techniques we're working on. The crypto zoologists are gonna find a way to-"

"The what?"

"Monster scientists, work with me, DuVal. They're gonna find away to make our boys invincible. But you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs. Human tests have to be done, too."

"What- what kind of tests?" DuVal asked nervously.

"Irrelevant." Fremont waved his hand unconcernedly. "But this administration- they'll never go for that. Some crap about human rights violations. We need to do damage control."

* * *

><p><em>United States Military Sensitive Materials Processing Plant- Undisclosed Location, Arizona.<em>

"This is impossible. No one would condone this. If this was successful- the human race would be in jeopardy." The researcher placed a newly received videotape in front of her superior officers.

"When did this arrive?" Col. Amanda Hernandez picked up the accompanying documents placed before her.

"The afternoon mail. Rerouted. It was heading to Washington, but it was flagged."

Hernandez pushed the cassette into a monitor and hit play. She watched in worried silence, rewound, and watched again. "This is a hoax."

"The tape might be, but look at the report, Ma'am."

"Sergeant, this report means nothing unless we get some corroboration. Get the facts on this researcher- Margaret S. Walsh. In the meantime, let me show this to Johnson and McNamara. Would you have them come in?"

"I'm sorry, Ma'am, Johnson's been in crisis mode teleconferencing with D.C. all day."

"What about?"

At that moment, Johnson himself came in, holding a huge print out. "We are in deep, nasty shit."

"Why? What'd we do?" Hernandez asked, standing up, hands reaching for the papers.

"Oh, not us, Babe. I mean, Colonel." Johnson winced at his slip. "The big boys. They've been playing mad scientists with -get this- vampires!" Johnson waited for noises of shock and horror to burst forth. None came.

"And?" Hernandez pressed.

"And someone hacked the big listserve. Pentagon Proper, everyone who works in the upper echelons got this along with their morning coffee."Johnson fanned the papers on the table. "You don't seem shocked."

"We're not." Hernandez sighed. "We just got the same thing- with footage. But it has to be a prank."

"No, demons exist-"

"I know that, Sweetie- I mean, Johnson." Hernandez traded papers with him. "But it has to be a prank. This note says they're not just doing research and they're not just protecting civilians! Look-" She held out a typed, anonymous letter, "they're- they're retraining them. Like an army."

"What?" Johnson grabbed the letter and read it, eyes huge in his tanned face. "No. No, no, this isn't in the email. I mean- the research is, but this part..." He looked up at the two women in the room. "This is part of the government's plan. From what I've gleaned today- this letter shows that whoever's the C.O. down there has gotten their own mission and they're going above and beyond the charter." He blanched. "I have to get back on the horn then. God, this is- if this is true, then we're all, everyone in the secret sectors, in a world of hurt."

"I'll come with you." Hernandez ejected the tape and followed her boyfriend-slash-co-worker out of the office. As she strode out she shouted to her sergeant, "Get me everything you can find on that woman- Margaret Walsh!"

* * *

><p>Maggie Walsh sat up slowly and painfully, unsure of where she was. Until her eyes adjusted. Blackness. All over her, surrounding her, in the room, on her skin, on her clothes. she was stiff and cold- but oddly enough, not injured. Hm. The vampire must be all talk. Scare tactics. Calm, rational, non-emotional thought. That was the key to surviving. She only had to hold on until Riley found her.<p>

"Oh, good. The human's up." A voice startled her. "Why are we keeping a human down here? Shouldn't she be near the kitchens?"

"That one's not for eating." Maggie felt ice slide down her spine and into the pit of her stomach, rational thinking no match for that kind of fear.

"Why?"

"Angelus."

"Ohhh. Damn."

"She's still fun to play with. You can probably have a few bites. Oh- but not the tongue or the head. He needs her talking and thinking for some reason."

"Hmm. Think he'd mind if she lost some fingers? They're the best part. So crunchy."

"You're such a pig. The calves are the best part, fatty enough for flavor but lean enough for protein."

In her cell, Maggie had sat, frozen, listening to two voices belonging to captors she couldn't see through the blackness. Inside, she was screaming, but outside- she only curled her hands into tight fists and wrapped herself up in a ball.

As she sat, rocking back and forth in a childlike frenzy of terror, she had a sudden flashback of walking down rows of electric white lab cells- and seeing many of her specimens doing the same thing.

And that vampire, Angel, Angelus, whatever- was right. She'd never stopped when they begged, always ignored their fear, their screams, any humanity she could see in their eyes. She doubted her current situation would be any different.

* * *

><p>"We have good news, folks." Spike slid into the flat with a cocky smirk and a trail of smoke from the late autumn sunshine.<p>

"Well, that's different." Giles muttered, shutting the door after Buffy followed her fiancé (he was going to have trouble with that word for ever, until it changed into "husband" which would be far more difficult to grasp) inside.

"You got your memory back?" Willow gasped ecstatically.

"Yes and no." Buffy linked her hand through Spike's outstretched one.

"You got some memories back? That's an improvement." Giles praised.

"Bigger stretches than before? Is that the reason for the celebratory-ness?" Xander asked with an eager grin.

"Back about two years ago." Buffy said proudly.

The squealing fairly deafened them all. She was swooped up in a hug, passed around from Willow to Anya, to Xander and Giles before she could even begin to clarify. To her surprise, and his puzzled pleasure, Spike was being given a similar treatment in all the excitement.

"So you remember all we did, senior year, junior year, the prom, the - the" Willow paused. Every major event that she wanted to mention included some yucky doom and gloom factoid as well. "And- everything?" She concluded.

"Not exactly." Buffy reclaimed Spike's hand. "But I remember a lot about Spike. Meeting him. Fighting him. Working together. Fighting him. Hating his guts." She frowned.

"Uhhh- then why the hand holding?" Xander pointed to the linked appendages. "Not that I'm complaining!" He held up his hands in quick surrender. "Scoobies have had their last stand, and _I_ stand committed to the fact that you're marrying this punk rock reject."

Spike snorted and shot him a malevolent glare, but otherwise ignored him. "We remembered each other, alright, but guess what, ladies and gents?" Spike's eyes gleamed possessively. "She'll still have me."

"And he still wants me." Buffy laid her head on his chest and gazed up at him before letting her eyes sweep across the four stunned faces watching her. "That was what you were worried about right? Wondering if I'd care, if we'd decide to hate each other again?"

"Kinda lived in hope..." Xander mumbled. Anya elbowed him sharply.

"You guys were right. Our memories did make a difference." Buffy consoled.

"Yeah- made us see that there's nothin' so bad we wouldn't overlook it for another shot together." Spike caressed her hair lovingly. "This is my girl. For the rest of forever."

"I need tissues." Anya blurted, wiping her eyes, and ran from the room.

"Your girlfriend is weird." Willow hissed.

"You dated a werewolf. So shut up." Xander said complacently.

"This is fascinating." Giles finally rejoined the conversation. "You're telling us you recalled events- but only pertaining to one another- from the time you met until the present?"

"Maybe not all, but plenty of big ones, Watcher." Spike grinned proudly.

Giles' eyes were grave as he nodded. "That's a valuable piece of information. Your memories have turned the corner. They're not just picking up sequential pieces of information anymore. They're revealing the most important pieces of information to you."

"It wasn't always clear..." Buffy twisted her hands nervously. "I mean, don't go thinking we're something really special, because it was in bits and pieces and blurry..."

"But you recalled events about Spike. Which, I'm afraid I'm forced to admit-probably means that you two are the most important people to one another-" Giles began with a trace of pain in his voice.

"She's my world." Spike reminded him.

Giles continued "-and therefore- your minds gave you all they could. You really are in love." He said softly.

"Are you just getting that?" Buffy asked incredulously.

"What people think of as love can be an illusion, or delusion, or obsession, or many things." Giles answered quickly. He'd known for a few days, it was just so strange that he had to keep reminding himself that it was true, and that given the circumstances, it wasn't wrong, and Buffy didn't need to be rescued from Spike, only protected from an armed force. ""But it can also simply be love." He smiled gently.

Anya chimed in. "I know. I've seen it. Not often, but I've seen the real thing and this is it."

Buffy cast grateful smiles at Giles and Anya, and then her gaze continued to the slight frown on Xander's face, and the gloomy expression on Willow's. "You guys- we talked about this. I know it's weird but-"

"Not the love part, Buffy. Although, yes, soooo weird." Willow cut her off, rolling her eyes heavenward.

"But you're happy, so we deal, because we're your best friends- even if we're not that important to you." Xander said bitterly.

"Jealous." Spike diagnosed bluntly. Buffy opened her mouth- but Xander was still speaking.

"If I lost my mind and I was getting it back in order of importance, I know Willow, you, and Anya would be on the top of my list. No offense G-Man."

"None taken. Not from you anyway. Although I will say, as your Watcher, I wish I'd made an appearance in your memories by now." His voice was somber, but he quickly took the self-pitying note out of it. "We don't control how the brain heals, however, and it is not our place to-"

"I remembered a lot about you guys, too." Buffy interrupted with a small, amused smile, crossing her arms across her chest. "I haven't ever faced ANY danger- not since meeting Spike, 'cause that's as far back as I go right now- without the three of you. And sometimes with you, Anya." She added quickly.

"Oh, I used to be evil and I didn't show up in your life until more recently. I'm not offended if I haven't reached the very important stage in your brain yet." She said easily. Then she frowned and turned to Xander. "Why was I last on your list of important people? Willow was first. I thought we were clear on my position as girlfriend being-"

"Not the time." Xander hissed.

"Really? We're coming back too?" Willow asked Buffy hopefully.

Buffy closed her eyes and concentrated. A few days ago, she would have been wishing for her memories to flood back, going crazy with a hundred different emotions that her friends were expecting more than she could give, the nagging feeling of disappointing them, pain, loss, frustration, fear. Now it didn't seem like such a big deal. It would come back. But it wouldn't make or break her, who she was. Her life only began in the past, but it was hers to finish in the future.

Buffy began to speak, eyes still squeezed shut. "Willow- you were there with me the night Spike and I were fighting in the high school. And Giles- you were trying to talk me out of facing him alone. You wanted to come with me." Her eyes opened up and fixed on the older man's face. "You're not supposed to do that. You're supposed to let me fight alone." She blinked in confusion. "You don't do that."

"Looks like you're both rule breakers." Spike smirked, arm around his future bride.

"I was supposed to, yes. But then I met you and you weren't just some chosen being, you were _Buffy_. A person I- came to care about." Giles polished his glasses in a sudden emotional twitch.

"That's why you're the father of the bride." She said softly.

The room was silent for a second, and then Anya, with her usual lack of tact, interrupted. "Do a Xander memory now."

Buffy laughed, Willow sighed, and Xander wrapped his arms around her. "No trouble telling who her most important person is, mate." Spike laughed with a shake of his head.

"Xander's the brave one." Buffy cocked her head. "We don't see that, because we're right in it. But you are. When you look at the movies- the ones that play in your head," she smiled softly, "you're never far from the action." She looked pointedly at him. "You don't know what you're doing, and you don't have the powers. You get hurt- a_ lot_, but you always run in to help. Because that's where your friends are, and you're brave enough to risk yourself to get to them."

Xander's face flushed and his chest puffed in pride, but he didn't say anything. He didn't think he could, because his throat was full. Buffy- secret crush, best friend, very much idolized person- called him brave.

"That's Xander." Anya said with knowing pride. "It's one of the reasons I picked him."

"All of you are brave. And you all think- I'm brave." Buffy had one of those moments of knowledge that wasn't directly connected to memories. "But I haven't been happy. There's always..." she paused, searching.

"Something wrong." Willow supplied.

"Something bad about to happen." Xander suggested.

"Something burdening you." Hazarded Giles.

"Missing." Spike said with absolute certainty. "Me."

"Yeah. Him." Buffy laughed quietly. "God, he's always cocky like that you know?"

"Oh man, do we know..." Xander groaned.

"Well _you_ were always a little bit of a Miss Priss- 'til I got hold of you." Spike winked.

"This is true." Anya nodded sagely.

The room laughed, even Buffy herself.

"Things seem to be progressing nicely." Giles rubbed his hands briskly as the chuckling died away. "I'm pleased you won't have to worry about old wounds coming suddenly to the surface." _At least not from him. When she remembers more about sending Angel to hell, more about the Cruciamentum, Joyce throwing her out... poor girl. But she is the brave one, and now- perhaps the happy one._

"Yeah, so- we wanted to get on with some other stuff. I mean, the mansion is-" Buffy paused and tried to blush too hard as she remembered the sexual marathon that had indeed encompassed almost every flat surface between bathroom and bedroom, "cozy-"

"But full of bad ghosts we can't recall." Spike rubbed his back reflexively, as he almost always did when thinking about the rooms downstairs. "Time to find our own place."

"But- money." Anya spoke to her specialty, all things practical.

"I know. We were thinking about that." Buffy and Spike sat in the easy chair they had claimed as their own in the recent days. Buffy leaned forward, perched on Spike's knee as he languished casually back in the chair, the picture of evil power and nonchalance.

"Be a good chap, Rupert." He spoke in the cold, sinister drawl he didn't have occasion to use anymore, and watched the occupants of the room exchange startled glances. "Tell Slayer an' me about that demon bar."

* * *

><p>"Are you sure you can do this?" Willow asked later that afternoon. She'd brought over some of Buffy's more "tough" outfits and was helping her look through them.<p>

"I'm with Spike. All I have to do is play off of him."

"We're going to be right outside."

"I wish you weren't. It's not a nice neighborhood." Buffy looked at the redhead. "But you always do that. Have my back."

"We're the Slayerettes. It's our gig. You always have our fronts." She bit her lip. "That doesn't sound as cool as it did in my head."

"It was very cool, Will." Buffy held up a short black leather coat and tight black dress. "How the hell do I do those high kicks in this outfit?"

"You're not usually worried about your dress when you see someone about to be vampire chow."

"Still, hello to flashing the undead population. The only one I want to see under this skirt is Spike."

Willow coughed and blushed. "Here. Jeans and these ankle boots will still make you look like hell on heels." She held out some faded jeans and nudged a pair of chunky black boots towards her. Buffy began to get changed, and Willow gasped seeing faint red marks on her friend's torso. and knowing how fast Buffy healed, they must have been much worse earlier.

"Oh." Buffy heard the gasp and yanked her shirt and the leather jacket on quickly. "Trust me. It feels amazing."

"But- he- you shouldn't..." She bit her lip.

"Will-_ he_ looks worse." Buffy winked and then got a look of girlish giggliness that Willow hadn't seen since- well since Angel. The first time she'd been in love- before she knew how it ended.

"Spill." Willow sat down on the bed, eyes lighting up. "The blurry watercolor version, not the - not the x rated version."

Buffy let out the giggles she was holding, and sat beside her, starting over with her new-old best girlfriend.

"What kind of beast did you face last night?" Giles winced when Spike changed into his least faded black tee while standing in the living room. Spike gave him a pitying look and Anya sighed.

"You need to go to the gym more." She told her boyfriend, looking enviously at the abdominal muscles Spike showed for a few seconds between changing shirts.

"You need a woman, mate." Spike addressed Giles.

"I'd have one, if we could all stop using my flat as the headquarters for disaster management." Giles mumbled in annoyance.

"No way did Buffy do that to you." Xander shook his head, and Giles, just catching on, looked faint.

"Not exactly, no. But Slayer sure did get me good." Spike shrugged into his coat and found the piece of paper (a torn scrap from the brown bag Giles had originally packed their food in) and consulted the list he and Slayer had made that morning while dozing on and off in bed. If all of this went well, he could cross something off the list and they could move onto the next item. "Don't worry, Giles. If our little game works, soon we'll have everyone over to our flat to have panic attacks."

"Your flat? What exactly are you planning to say to Willy?" Giles demanded worriedly.

Spike patted down his pockets, looking for a cigarette, even though he knew it wasn't there, and by now he no longer craved them. It was part of his "look". "We'll tell you after we tell him." Spike smirked. "Got a smoke? I just need one, for the image."

Giles coughed bashfully and headed over to the cabinet where the record player and his albums sat. Rummaging in a drawer he found a half empty packet of cigarettes that had been there- oh, dear Lord, since the night of the band candy incident. "Here." He tossed the packet at him. "Keep the whole thing with you, it'll make it look more realistic." He cleared his throat and called up the stairs, eyes carefully averted, voice sounding only mildly interested. "Buffy, did you speak to your mother today?"

"Not yet! I'll call her sometime later tonight." Buffy's voice was accompanied by footsteps clopping down the stairs.

"Oh, now _that's_ Slayer." Spike licked his lips and surveyed the leather clad beauty with pouty lips and tousled hair. He meant, of course, the girl he'd imagined when they were trying to piece together their identities without much help. "Knew you were in there..." He prowled up to her, cigarette going automatically between lips, and slender white fingers seamlessly finding and flipping open his silver lighter as he walked.

Buffy's hand slammed into his chest, keeping him at arms length. "Don't mess up the make up." She purred in a sultry tone. She nipped her lips shut inches from his, and then teased her head back out of range. He let out a low rumble in his chest, the kind that made her shiver. Frustrated, sexually wild, devilish lover. "Sexy beast."

"Just let me show you..." He urged, fingers curling possessively around her hand, pushing it down so they were no longer apart.

Giles cleared his throat, reminding the lovebirds- more like love tigers, he found himself thinking, that they had an audience. "You look very- authentic? What exactly _are_ you supposed to look like?"

Spike and Buffy exchanged a glance and a knowing smile. "People you don't want to mess with." Buffy answered. "C'mon, it's dark enough." She grabbed her bag and sauntered to the door, Spike striding behind her.

"Well, they've captured the image." Xander said, staring after them, wondering if Anya owned boots like Buffy's.

"Poor Willy." Willow muttered.

* * *

><p>"It's my two favorite people- who I ain't seen in weeks. Where you been?" Willy greeted Buffy and Spike with a magnanimous gesture. He stopped polishing the pint mugs and looked at them smugly. "Not that I missed you."<p>

"Wow, Willy, where's the attitude coming from?" Buffy bluffed her way through a calm, appraising glance of the spindly bartender. She shot a nervous look at Spike, who shrugged imperceptibly in his coat. Neither of them knew if this was Willy's regular attitude, but from their conversations at Giles' place, it didn't seem to fit. Willy was described as a whiny weasel with stool pigeon tendencies if threatened properly.

"Attitude? Sweetheart, there's no attitude."

"Watch your mouth." Spike growled.

"No, you watch_ your_ mouth." Willy smiled in an irritating way. "See, you're in my place, and you can't lay a finger on me no more. So you want something to drink or what?"

"Ooh, Willy. You know, Spike can't lay a finger on you- but I can." Buffy flexed her petite hand. "I can lay a whole bunch on you." She neatly curled it into a fist.

Willy's voice shook slightly. "Yeah, but you're a good guy. You only do that if I got info. Which I don't have. So- so I ain't scared of you."

"You shouldn't be scared of us- as much as your clientele." Spike lit up a cigarette and let one hand lightly rest on Buffy's hip. Willy's eyes widened and he took a step back.

"You got a pulse, right, Slayer?" He didn't know what to make of her acting cozy with Spike, who definitely wasn't no Angel, Spike was pure evil, punch you soon as look at you. At least before the army goons stepped in.

"Oh, yeah. My heart just pounds away." Buffy leaned into Spike's touch, secretly enjoying Willy's freaked expression.

"Okay- so why am I gonna be scared of these saps? Them days is over, they can't hurt me." Willy pointed around the bar with his narrow chin, gesturing to a bunch of subdued, broody looking demons.

"Because..." Spike smirked and dropped his voice, "you think the demons can't hurt you. Did you know we could hurt each other?"

"Well, w-why should I care if-" Willy began to stammer.

"You should care, mate. Imagine your bar, full of violent demons with a pent up penchant for blood lust- and the only ones they can take it out on are also conveniently-" Spike tapped the bar counter with his knuckles, "right here."

Willy's already pallid face paled further. "That doesn't-"

"Who knows who'll get caught in the ricochet?" Buffy slid herself artfully against Spike's leg and pulled herself onto a stool. "Flying punches, pool cues stabbing, broken glass, thrown chairs... the property damage alone." She sighed and pouted at him soulfully. "I hope you have a low deductible on your property insurance."

Willy paused and sighed heavily. Then he leaned forward and hissed. "So why are you tellin' me this? There ain't no love lost between you an' me. That whole unfortunate thing where I left Angel to die in the sun in my store room. How is he by the way, heard he's in town?"

Spike snarled and grabbed the counter, pulling himself forward. "He's fine an' he's not in town anymore. Not to go all cliche and western on you, but this town ain't big enough for the both of us."

"Focus on this, Willy, worry about snooping into private lives later." Buffy yanked his chin towards her, eyes burning into his. "Your bar is going to become a war zone as soon as these guys figure out the limits of the chip. Not to mention the ones who come into town who aren't chipped up."

"So we figure, you're gonna need some muscle who's willin' to work with you." Spike smiled.

"And how'd I know that'd be you, Spike?" Willy asked with a quirked eyebrow and a disbelieving snort.

"He's the one who gets the Slayer endorsement." Buffy purred, leaning over to Spike and giving him a lingering, decidedly unchaste kiss on the cheek. Spike sniggered and half closed his eyes as he let out a snarling little chuckle, nuzzling his face into her lips. Willy's jaw dropped to the vicinity of his knees.

"Uhh-" Willy gaped and continued to make incoherent noises. "Uh- guh- ugh?"

"Don't look so shocked." Buffy lightly traced Spike's hairline. "I need to patrol out there, I need someone who can take care of things in here. No one I'd rather have doing that. My perfect partner."

Willy considered the possibility that his jaw might never reattach to his upper mandible again, and that he might be permanently struck dumb. The Slayer and Spike, Slayer of Slayers- were groping each other in his bar.

"Pick your chin up, Will. This is a great deal for you. You take me as your friendly neighborhood bouncer, an' you get the Slayer as part of the package. Two for one. We'll help you keep the nasties under control."

"Oh, I get it. Protection racket, huh?"

Buffy looked highly offended. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that."

Spike lost his sinister expression, adopting the more serious, but humane expression that now felt more natural. The man, the good man, ruling the monster so he'd have a second shot at a better life, one with love and a purpose. "You pay me a reasonable salary, throw in whatever blood's on tap, you've got yourself a bouncer. You don't want to be protected, fine."

Buffy slid from the stool and sighed. "Your loss. Once these guys figure it out..."

"How do I even know this is all true, huh?" Willy asked as they prepared to walk away.

"Oh, you want a demo?" Spike smiled snarkily. Before Willy could open his mouth, he turned to face the scattered tables and booths. "Oi! You!" He pointed to a hairy, powerfully built demon, and called out. "You should've heard what Mr. Big an' Scaly said about your mum. Right nasty mouth on him." Spike shook his head and clucked towards a red reptilian being shooting pool.

Willy blanched. "What are you trying to do?" He hissed.

"Watch." Spike leaned back, arms crossed, and surveyed the two demons begin shouting at and insulting one another.

"Those two are chipped up, they're just gonna keep shouting." Willy said nervously.

"I gotta amuse myself, work or play..." Spike shrugged.

"You tell me what you said, right now, or I'll slug you, chip or no chip!" One demon yelled out.

"Oh, discovery time." Buffy winced with fake apology.

"You're sure? You really sure they can hurt their own kind?" Willy demanded nervously.

"Plenty. Spike's been patrolling with me a lot lately. He's put the big sleep on a dozen different kinds of demons."

"Vamps are my specialty." Spike grinned, licking his teeth. "Got a taste for the hunt- like to hunt the big game now, Willy, humans aren't so much of a challenge." Spike bluffed, hoping that was something the old Spike might've said, but doubting it.

Willy looked anxiously between Spike and Buffy and the arguing demons- now standing in the center of the bar, all eyes on them, nose to nose and showing no sign of stopping.

"Okay, look...those guys are gonna start fighting, and that's a Molgarath demon. When he starts bellowing a battle cry- oh man...He can blow bones out of your face with one good sneeze!" The barkeeper swallowed nervously.

Spike shook his head put on his best big blue eyed look, widening them to make himself look innocent and boyish. "Oh, pity, you'd look so much better with your bones in." He admired his nails casually. "Well, nice evenin', we'll be off if you don't think you need the help-" He took Buffy's arm and began to move away again.

"Geez! Are you insane? You can have the job, I'd love you to have the job- on one condition, stop those two from fighting!" The short man burbled anxiously.

"No trouble. Oi! Mate." Spike walked to the Molgarath demon and tapped in on the shoulder. "My mistake. He didn't say a thing about your mother." Spike turned to the other demon, red skin now a dark crimson with anger. "No, he was talkin' about mine." Spike decked the other demon to the floor, causing the entire patronage to gasp and exchange looks. "No way to insult a lady's memory!" He lectured the awed demon as it looked up from the floor, clutching it's jaw.

Buffy stepped in hastily. "Sorry," she said sweetly, "he's not always rational... something not quite right up here." She circled her finger across her temple and mouthed "nut job". "I'd just break it up if I were you. Go play nice now."

The demons separated hastily, fleeing to opposite areas of the bar, surrounded by many murmurs of, "He was chipped. That was Spike. He's chipped, isn't he? He's tough, he doesn't feel the pain. Always was a violent bastard, stay clear of him..."

Spike and Buffy looked in smooth smugness at Willy.

"Uh. Wow. G-good job, guys. So- you wanna start now?" Willy asked.

Spike considered, then shook his head. "Nahh. I'll be in on Monday. Slayer an' I? We've got a bit of a project we're working on just now."

With their arms around each other, they headed into the gathering dusk.

* * *

><p>"That was easy." Buffy let out a shaky breath.<p>

"Well, who could say no to that face?" Spike kissed her lips with a smug grin.

"Not you, anyway." Buffy locked her thumbs behind his ears and kept him kissing her, leaning him back agains the brick wall of the alley behind the bar.

* * *

><p>In Giles' car, four figures squinted into the darkness at the two shadowy forms.<p>

"Well... That probably indicates success." Giles coughed and nodded towards the embracing couple.

"Are you kidding? The mad lovers of the Hellmouth? That could indicate anything from violent demon attack to getting a good sandwich." Xander muttered.

Willow sighed, mind drifting back to giggling confidences she and Buffy shared earlier that day. "She's happy. In the midst of all this really scary stuff- she's happy. No angsty, weepy Buffy." Willow settled back into her seat with a grin, casting an elfin grin back to Anya and Xander in the back. "If he can make her happy in the middle of all this? That's some guy."

"Told you." Anya smiled back.

"Happy or not, they're making a spectacle of themselves whilst they should be in hiding." Giles said severely and prepared to honk the horn. Willow's hand snatched at his sleeve and held him at bay, her big doe eyes at their biggest and greenest.

"But... happy Buffy." She pouted and pointed with her wobbling lip.

"Oh..." Giles let his hand drop. "For just another moment."

* * *

><p>In the darkness, Buffy panted breathlessly into Spike's passionate kiss. "We- should go. Right?"<p>

" 'Nother minute, Slayer. We've got all the time in the world, you an' me."

"No, we don't." She let herself be kissed again, senses spinning happily, but still dimly aware that no matter how good things seemed- her life and his would always be at risk, no time was ever guaranteed. She kissed him back harder, determined not to waste a moment of it.

"Yes, we do. After all, you're my world, aren't you? Don't I have all your time?" Spike teased.

Put that way- Buffy nodded against his head. "All my time. All the time in the world."

_To be continued..._


	18. Chapter 18

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Notes: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Dedicated to DLillith21, ginar369, Lil-Leti, Vera Snape-Evans, trashyfiction, Fanficfemale, McPastey, Searching-for-my-Reason, Lithium Reaper, and Little Missy123 _

_Okay- we jump around a bit, because we're moving this story towards it's finish in a few chapters. This is about moving forward, furthering the plot, so no smut today. (I know you're all sad...)_

_Thank you for your support! **This ****story ****has ****been ****nominated ****at ****The ****Sunnydale ****Memorial ****Fanfiction****Awards,**(located at __sunnyd awardsdot dragonydreams dotcom__ /indexdothtml) in the following categories:_

_Best New Author, Best Drama, Best Pairing Conventional, Best Unfinished_

_**If you like it, please go vote for it!**_

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part XVIII

_Washington, D.C._

"Find Walsh and send a team to Sunnydale to check the status of this operation." Fremont gave the orders to his best trained operatives.

"If we find the statements in the report are true-"

"Confiscate all equipment, release all demons who have the implant, destroy the ones who don't."

"The personnel?"

"Scientists report here. To me. Personally, you understand, not someone else, me. The grunts- pull their histories and put them back into special ops programs or see if Billings wants them for his squad. The one that does dangerous demon search and destroy missions." Fremont poured a drink with a shaking hand. "But find Walsh. She's responsible for this- this massive misinterpretation of the Initiative's mission." _That's the story and we're sticking to it..._

* * *

><p><em>United States Military Sensitive Materials Processing Plant- Undisclosed Location, Arizona.<em>

"No one can find Walsh, but we have a team heading to Sunnydale." Hernandez explained wearily, slipping out of her fatigues.

"What are they going to do?" Johnson, pulling up his pajamas asked.

"Deny all knowledge and complicity and stay away from anything non-human. We're supposed to find Walsh and corroborate this bullshit." She popped two aspirin and crashed to the bed. "I hate days like today. I just want to sleep."

"Oh. Just sleep?" Johnson hinted.

"Yes. As in leave me alone or go back to your quarters." She moaned and pulled a pillow over her head.

"Got it. We had a long day."

"I know. You deserve all the good stuff, Baby. Can I get you after the crisis?"

"Count on it."

* * *

><p><em>Lowell House Initiative Headquarters_

"You can count on us, Sir. Yes, Sir. As soon as we hear, Sir. Over and out." Riley shook his head. "This is bigger than we thought." _Well, bigger than _you_ guys thought. Am I sweating? Do I look guilty? I feel so guilty, and yet- not guilty. God, I hate this town. Sunnydale, should have names it Shadydale, all the stupid shades of gray in this hellhole..._

"What's the word?" Gates asked as Riley seemed to be chewing the words in his mouth without ever getting them out.

"That was Washington. After Walsh's AWOL status went out in the last hour-"

"We could've waited longer to file." Adams looked pointedly at Finn.

"No, we couldn't. There are rules, Adams." Riley glared him to silence. He had been put in charge of all squad activity in the last twelve hours, in Walsh's absence.

"Go on, what'd they say?" Leland leaned forward.

"Some very unflattering things that I can't disclose. But what I can tell you is this- stop bag and tagging. If you see a demon tonight- kill it if it threatens you or civilians. Don't bring anything else into the lab. We'll have teams arriving in the next twenty four hours and they uh- they don't want a bigger demon population in the labs. Not without Walsh here."

"I hear that." Gates shivered. "Nasty pieces of demon shit, we should be killin' 'em anyway, not playin' around with their heads, man."

"We just follow orders." Fraye, a man in Leland's squad shrugged.

"Yeah, well, here's the order you all will follow until someone else tells me different. All active bag and tags are done until further notice. Priority one is to find Walsh."

"We've turned this town upside down and inside out." Graham remarked gravely. "Riley, I think we have to consider demon retaliation. Probably one of the escaped hostiles hired an unchipped assailant."

At the terms 'unchipped' and 'escaped hostile', Riley's spine stiffened. _They wanted action. Would they have crossed the line? Maybe. Maggie was Hitler incarnate to Buffy and her pals. And Spike was a demon. A violent, newly unrestrained one. Oh God._ "Follow any leads you get then." Riley said hoarsely. "Leland- I want you to take two of the Hummers, split Tan Squad and Scarlet Squad and work your way out of town, one east and one west. Maybe there's some reason she left the area."_ Like being tipped off. That she was about to be exposed. Or maybe threatened and hunted down by that vampire..._ "The rest of us will keep working in town. This is a search and recovery mission. We_ will_ find Walsh if she's in this state."

* * *

><p>It was like being on some other planet. Some horror movie. Walsh tried every dissociative tactic she knew, every distancing technique and mental discipline she'd ever heard of. It didn't work. She was still in the black, filthy cell and she was miserable, cold, starving, scared, and dirtier than she'd ever been in her life. But she still had all her limbs and fingers in tact. Not through her own begging- which she was forced to admit had been plentiful, she'd cracked and bawled and begged like a baby. No, she was spared by one of the demons, not through mercy, but through mere circumstances.<p>

The stick had cracked across her knuckles and she felt all the bones snap and shatter like paper thin glass hurled a thousand feet. She dimly remembered the words- "Now you split them lengthwise and you don't choke on the bones. Where's that deboning knife?" Then she remembered blood and screaming- her own.

Another voice, louder, angrier, far less matter of fact had come roaring overtop of her own screeches. "What in the name of Kiskamar are you two doing?"

"Snacking?" One of her captors said innocently.

"On Angelus's prisoner? Are you mad?"

"He said as long as we didn't touch her tongue or her head we could do whatever we wanted- well as long as she's alive when he comes to pick her up." The captor replied sulkily.

"Well -knock her unconscious first! That screaming is upsetting all the Narht'kahars in the next building and in a minute we'll have a revolt."

"But if we knock her unconscious- that's touching her head." A second jailer pointed out.

"Ah. Well...hmm. The Narth'kahars are being picked up tomorrow and transported back to their own dimension for execution. Just wait until then."

"Dammit."

"Don't sulk, she's still fresh. She'll be fine for another twenty four hours."

Walsh was shoved back in her cell, one finger slit down the middle, and the entire hand blackened and broken. A single day reprieve.

Now half of that day was gone...

She wouldn't be able to operate like this, one handed. If those bones weren't reset, she's lose the use of that hand. She wouldn't be able to complete Adam. But she wouldn't be able to complete Adam at all if the vampire shut down the Initiative. Of course, if she didn't take the action the vampire wanted, she could be reduced to a mere torso in minutes, as long as her brain and mouth remained in tact. That would prevent Adam from being finished as well.

The vampire's cold black eyes, and even colder, blacker voice screamed inside her mind, even overriding the waves of pain and nausea, even overriding the neat mental box she was locking herself into to avoid thinking about what was happening.

_"I'm the only thing keeping you alive right now."_

Alive might not be enough... if Riley didn't find her soon- she might be forced to make a phone call.

* * *

><p>Angel sat unmoving at his desk, both cell phone and office phone in front of him. He stared them down, willing them to ring. "I give you credit, Mags." He muttered in a dark, biting tone. "I didn't think you'd stand one day in there. But I'll bet by the end of two- you'll be making a call..."<p>

"You're threatening the phones now?" Cordelia strode into the office, heels clicking loudly, flipping on lights and plugging in the coffee machine, without a second thought for the dark and somber mood her boss seemed to be in. "You must be really bored."

"Cordelia! I'm- what are you doing here?"

"It's morning. I work for you. Ergo, I'm here. Where's my hazelnut nonfat creamer?" She peered in the mini fridge in the main office.

"I'm kind of- there's this thing-" Angel found himself awkwardly trying to explain.

"You're brooding. So over it. Anyway- my creamer?"

He sighed and came to the doorway, pointing. "Bottom shelf. Make your coffee and take calls- but I'm not here. Oh! Unless it's someone named Maggie, or- or they call and say it's about Maggie. Or Walsh. Or if it's someone from Sunnydale. In fact- make coffee and sit there, but don't answer the phones. _I'll_ answer the phones, but I'm not going out on any cases- unless I- uh- have to. " He backed into his office, shutting the door behind him, a furtive, ill at ease expression on his face.

Cordelia stared at his retreating figure until he pulled the blinds closed. "O-kay. Even for a vampire- he's getting creepy."

* * *

><p>Buffy sat up with a gasp and a start in the narrow bed she shared with Spike. "Wicked creepy!" She looked around frantically.<p>

"Hm? What is it, Poppet?" Spike came awake instantly. "Spiders? You're afraid of spiders, aren't you?" He seemed to vaguely recalled her mentioning something about spiders and bugs while they were in the cave.

"Yes- the little regular ones. Give me a big, fangy, oozing monster spider and I'd go slayer on his arachnid tushy. No- no, this was different. Oh, man, I'm glad it was just a dream. Or a memory. Stupid brain zapper." She rubbed the back of her head worriedly and huffed out a breath, blowing her blonde locks off her forehead.

"What was it about?" Spike pulled her back down to his side, stroking her hair.

"Some little girl was singing at me in a big lecture hall. I guess it was the doorway of one the college buildings. Fuzzy on the college memories, kinda thinking college is more a hobby and slaying is the real deal." She lay down, but her eyes refused to close.

"I'm sure, Luv." Spike leaned down and brushed his lips across hers. "Was it a recital then? Kiddie talent show?"

"I hope not. No- there was something else first- someone whispering in my ear. something like 'Shh, the curtain's about to go up. Then there was this little girl with a really fancy box in her hands. she started singing in this soft, eerie little voice. That almost freaked me out as much as the guy."

"What guy?"

"At the end of the song I turned around and there was this- I don't know what, monster zombie undertaker looking guy with a creepy smile. And I mean creepy, not unsettling, but _creepy_, like all your skin wants to crawl off and hide." She shuddered and Spike held her tightly.

"You've already slain him, Pet, you're fine."

"I know." Only she didn't know. Her senses tingled oddly. "I don't feel like I- like remember it. You know that feeling when we remember stuff?"

"Like lookin' at a film an' you're the star, yeah, Slayer. It's all there, but you're just the audience."

"This is weirder. It's not like I'm just watching it. It was like this was performed _for_ me."

Spike tilted his head speculatively. "Hm. Well, what did the little chit have to sing for herself?"

Buffy closed her eyes and concentrated, and then sang, softly and out of tune, but word for word perfect.

_"Can't even shout_

_Can't even cry_

_The gentlemen are coming by_

_looking in windows_

_knocking on doors_

_They need to take seven_

_and they might take yours_

_Can't call to mom_

_can't say a word_

_You're gonna die screaming but you won't be heard."_

She opened her eyes to Spike's, jade eyes deep and wide. "Fortune favors the brave." She intoned.

Spike sat up and reached for his pants.

"What's going on?" Buffy sat back up as well.

"That ain't normal, Slayer." He said in a worried voice, dressing hurriedly.

"Is anything here ever normal?" Buffy laughed nervously.

"Nope, but this one pushes the envelope for me. Get your togs on, we're heading to the Watcher Man's."

"But- Spike, it's just a memory. Just a really, really creepy memory of something bad I've already fought. That little girl might be evil for all I know, or maybe it's a memory of me as a child- although I don't think I looked like that. Maybe it's a childhood friend or something." She stubbornly remained in bed, sitting up higher, fixing Spike with a pouting stare.

"Maybe so, Luv. Just answer me one quick little question." Spike tugged on his tee shirt and stood beside the bed, dressed and looking determined.

"What, Baby?"

"Are your memories usually word for word perfect, crystal clear like that? With the perfect voice inflections and the close ups of the big nasties?"

Buffy laughed. "No, more like watching a movie with the film skipping and butter smeared all over the screen. Blurry and splotchy, to put it nicely."

"Yeah. Mine, too. Except for the ones about you, those were more clear."

"True." She bit her lip. "So what are you saying?"

"That wasn't a memory."

"Then it was just a dream." She comforted.

"Mhmm. Tell it to me again. See if you can add more details." Spike crossed his arms and listened to Buffy recite the dream/memory again, with even greater clarity, adding in the colors of the little girl's dress and the monster man's suit, even the fact that he was holding something shiny in his hand. "And the voice... the voice that says the curtain's about to go up-" She looked at him. "Say that. Really soft, in a whisper."

"Shh. The curtain's about to go up." Spike breathed in her ear, leaning close to her.

Buffy gasped and yanked her clothes from the night before off the floor. "It was _your_ voice."

"An' dreams get blurrier, not clearer, the longer you're awake, as a rule." Spike was packing their assorted weapons and toiletries into the bags they carried with them each day and night, since they'd had a rocky few weeks, never sure where they'd end up.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Buffy jammed her feet into her sneakers and started leading the way out of the room. "That's not the problem. Here's the problem- why would you ever be in the middle of the college lecture hall, watching a children's voice recital?"

"I- uh- somethin' dead nasty an' evil that we shouldn't think on, Slayer?" He offered with a wince.

"Right. But could you do anything nasty? To kids or any other humans?"

"Not lately." Spike's brow furrowed.

"Hence the wiggedness. You don't go around whispering in my ear for the hell of it- well- you do now..." She rolled her eyes.

"Somethin' isn't right. Little girls wouldn't sing songs about dyin' screamin'." Spike seized her hand. "Let's go."

* * *

><p>"Go. Away." Giles shouted at his front door. He roughly jerked his digital clock to face him. "Four in the morning. Oh, joy. A whole four hours of sleep." He rolled over, fighting for the energy to get up.<p>

"Giles?" A soft hesitant voice crept up the stairs to reach his ears.

"Oh no." He whimpered.

"Giles, we let ourselves in with the key..."

"Bloody brilliant idea, Rupert. Do tell them where you keep the spare key." He muttered to himself and slowly rose from his barely used bed. "This had better be very urgent or extremely bad." He threatened over the wrought iron railings leading to his bedroom.

"We're hoping neither." Spike called back. "But we need the books an' the brainpower to figure out if we're overreactin'."

"Almost certainly. It is _you_, after all, Spike. Goodnight, come back when I'm awake." Giles leaned wearily on the railing and looked down.

"Actually- _I'm_ the one who had the dream. A really, weird, freaky, clear, mondo creepy dream." Buffy shivered and looked up at him with puppy dog eyes.

"A Slayer dream?" Giles pushed his glasses crookedly on his face and looked at her expectantly.

"A what?" She asked with a puzzled, almost innocent expression.

"Damn it all." Giles staggered down the stairs. "You've forgotten you have those."

"Have what?" Spike shook his head.

"Good Lord." Giles rubbed his head tiredly. What a wonderful new day this would be...

* * *

><p>"Being a slayer is a lousy job and it really messes up sleeping, for all involved." Buffy sulked on Spike's lap as Giles thrust a pencil and pad at her. "I told you- I don't draw. If I did draw- I don't draw now."<p>

"Just try to sketch the creepy man." Giles propped his books against his knee and stared moodily into a third cup of coffee.

"How often do I have these things?" Buffy asked as she picked up the pencil gingerly.

"Two or three times in our years together." Giles told her.

"Here, Slayer." Spike took the pencil and paper. "Somethin's comin' back." He started sketching quickly, swift, light stokes, until a rough outline of a profile began to appear.

"That's me! Or- it would be if my head was kind of blurry and blank looking." Buffy recognized the outline.

"I think I might know how to draw a bit. An' speak French. Should I speak French?" He asked the former librarian.

"Speak Chinese for all I care." Giles sighed.

"Sorry- I don't speak Chinese." Spike said with a sudden cocky smile that startled himself and Buffy. His fangs burst forth and he inhaled and swallowed- as if scenting tasting a long awaited sip of champagne.

"Spike?" Buffy watched him worriedly but didn't pull back.

"I don't speak Chinese. Just know it. An' I've- said it before. An'- not to you. To someone like you..." Spike shook his head and his human features returned. He sniffed Buffy. "She smelled different- tasted similar..."

"I imagine you're recalling sense memories of the slayer you killed during the Boxer Rebellion. A 15 year old, I can't recall her name, but it's in the Black Chronicles." Giles said more bluntly than he'd meant to.

Spike stood in a flash, guiltily looking at Buffy and then at Giles. He'd known what he'd done, that is he'd read about it, knew his nickname, Slayer of Slayers. He didn't usually feel too broken up about it, 'cause hell, you can't change it, can you? Just move ahead. But he didn't like the thoughts- the sudden urge to drink... drink her, his one an' only for the rest of his unlife.

"Shh. Shh. Spike, easy." Buffy took his forearms in her petite hands. "I know-"

"Didn't mean to vamp." He croaked, overriding her.

"Of course not." Buffy soothed. "You would never hurt me."

"But I wanted to bite." He frantically smoothed his hair, ungelled and running to ringlets in the early morning hours.

"But you didn't. It's okay, Baby. The past is dead, the future is alive."

"I could do anything for you, Slayer, you know that, don't you? I _can_ be good. Well, not evil enough to give you grief."

"You are good. _Wickedly_ good." She kissed him tenderly, looking into his worried eyes. "Sometimes we just know things, and we react. Doesn't mean we _actually_ act. Not now." She sat back in his lap as he returned to their chair. "Were you going to draw the guys from my dream?"

"Uh- yeah." Spike nodded, looking slightly lost as the urges teased him and released him, confused him but didn't take him over. "You tell me what they look like, an' I'll be your sketch artist, alright?"

"Right." Buffy leaned over him, hand on his hand, lips to his ear, the curtain of unkempt blonde hair shielding their faces from the audience they'd all but forgotten they had. Breathing in a voice so low only he, with his supernatural hearing could catch it, she whispered- "This Slayer is okay to bite, Baby. No-" She silenced the protest she could hear him beginning. "Love bites are different, and really, _really_ wanted." She flicked her tongue against his earlobe, pushing her hips more firmly into his lap.

"Never hurt you again." He whispered in just a slightly louder whisper for her human ears.

"I know. Why do you think I want you, even after what we saw, what we know, all we finally started remembering? You and I can fight off everything from an apocalypse to a resentful mother. But it has to be both of us now."

"You're one hell of a woman, Slayer."

Giles watched from the corner of his eye, unable to hear their words now, but recalling the exchange he'd just seen, and reading Buffy's comforting gestures. _Look at the woman she's become. She's had to grow up so fast- yet she never had this air about her. Grown up, yes, but now- mature. Mature, and yet happy in spite of all that befalls her._ He flipped through his book idly, not really seeing the words, seeing the couple in front of him as Buffy began to talk and Spike began to sketch, working together, calmly, affectionately._ I've never seen her like that. Not just a young woman, but simply a woman. Mature, focused, without losing that sweet smile- even though it's directed at Spike, not just a smile in general._ He slowly closed the book and watched the couple more intently, not really looking at Spike so much as looking at Buffy, interacting with Spike. _Of course. A woman. A lover, a Slayer, a friend, a daughter. Preparing to be someone's wife. Dear God. Even if she doesn't live another day- I did something no other Watcher in history will ever be able to claim. I watched my girl grow up._

* * *

><p>"I give up. It's Mister Ugly and he likes to watch kids sing. Are you sure we shouldn't be calling the police instead of looking through all these really big," Buffy shoved one dusty volume away, "boring," she sighed and took yet another, "really confusing books?"<p>

Willow gave her a sympathetic look. She'd come over because she couldn't really think of anything more urgent to do on a Saturday than help her best friend who'd undoubtably be at Giles' eventually. "Sorry, Buffy. Slayer dreams equal bookage. Not police." She tapped at the keyboard. "I'm not finding anything online. If we had a scanner we could run Spike's drawing through it. That'd be good. But we don't. And I really don't want to go over to the campus and do it in the library computer lab. That's all I need, with crazy commando guys roaming around looking for demons- to get caught uploading their pictures."

"Willow, have you had any- er- returns from the hacking and message sending that you did?" Giles asked worriedly.

"Nope. I don't think I will either. This girl I met- Tara, she's super powerful, Giles, and way focused- as in no bad side effects happen when she works magic- she taught me a reflective spell. I did on the mail I sent. The encryptions doubled and whenever they get close to finding the source, the spell counteracts it and just reflects back all their own hacking work. Cool, huh?"

"Very- uh- cool." Giles looked at her severely. "You haven't been involving her in this little foray have you?"

"No way! But she's nice and we talked some magic the other day. She's- nice." Willow said defensively.

"If it keeps the olive drab away from the door, I'm all for it." Spike sighed and slammed a book shut. "I'm gettin' edgy. Need to kill somethin' soon. Somethin' evil, of course." He clarified.

"Well, you have to wait until dark. Keep looking. If I have to read, _you_ have to read." Buffy slammed the book back open and took another one for herself.

* * *

><p>"If we haven't found her by dark, we're expanding the search to a twenty mile radius." Riley relayed the information to his teams of operatives via walkie-talkie. "All channels, report."<p>

"Channel One, negative."

"Channel Two, negative."

"Channel Three, vampire nest, no human bodies, no evidence of Walsh. Negative."

"Channel four, negative."

"Home. Nothing to report. Bring it in at noon, boys, with coordinates of where you last were. Fresh teams start from there."

* * *

><p>"Teams arrived safely at the California border, Ma'am." Johnson reported to his superior-slash-girlfriend.<p>

"Okay. Tell them to stop for the day before it gets dark."

"We're US Military. We don't bunk down, we change drivers." Johnson protested.

"Are you questioning me, Soldier?"

"No way. I mean, no, Ma'am."

Hernandez sighed. "Look, that town is coastal, that means crossing the state, and that's a long drive, even in the high speed transports. I don't want them getting there after dark- not that town. Not with - vampires."

"We could request a chopper?"

"We did. Rejected. Washington already requested one, and two requests to the same little town would raise too many eyebrows. Apparently." She rolled her eyes. "But that's the big boys for you. Always trying to cover their tracks after the fact."

"No disrespect to the superiors, of course." Johnson covered their own rears.

"Not really, no." Hernandez put her head down on a stack of "questionable" correspondence. "I mean- who in the world would ever believe vampires and demons and crazy scientists creating monster armies would exist?"

* * *

><p>"This demon must exist, but it's not in any demonology guide I have on hand." Giles called the three weary readers to a halt after lunch. "I've lost access to the Watcher's Council Library in England, of course. And there's no time to fly there anyway. But if there was a book that mentions such a creature, it would be there. Dammit."<p>

"Can't you call an old Watcher buddy and ask them to look for you?" Willow asked hesitantly.

"Old Watcher buddies, as you call them, do not assist disgraced members, such as myself." He said bitterly. Then his eyes gleamed behind his glasses. "Unless of course- they were almost as badly disgraced. Or they owe me a few months worth of favors." He reached into the center drawer of his desk and rummaged for a few minutes before finding a small red address book. "Here it is." He proclaimed triumphantly.

"Who are you calling?" Willow asked, puzzled.

"Wesley."

"Wesley?" Willow gaped.

"Who the bloody hell is Wesley?" Spike inquired, draining a second mug of warm blood.

"Buffy's second Watcher."

"Say who now?" Buffy stopped picking at her sandwich.

"You know, you read about him." Giles muttered absently. "Not important, he never did much in the way of helping. The little incompetent prat. He'll be out on his ear before too much-ah, hello, Wesley?"

Buffy and Spike watched Giles' face transform, going from slightly harried looking to more cold and severe than they were used to. "I must've dialed the wrong number." He said stiffly into the receiver.

"Who is it?" Willow mouthed.

"Travers." Giles replied, not bothering to be quiet. "What? No, I thought this was Wyndam-Price's phone number. I'll ring off and try him a- oh. Well, do you have any contact information for him?" Giles turned to his guests and mouthed, "Fired." Willow gasped sympathetically and Buffy and Spike shrugged as they exchanged a glance.

"What? No, I've no wish to 'catch up' as you so nicely put it. Hm? Yes, Buffy's fine. As am I, since that was probably your next question." Giles spoke cooly.

"That's the guy that fired Giles. The boss Watcher." Willow explained to Buffy who seemed to be trying to recall where she heard that name and why she disliked it.

"You must be quite bored now, Quentin, with Faith languishing in a coma and Buffy independent and Watcher-less. Whatever will the Council do?" Angry scratches of an annoyed voice could be heard through the phone. "Steady on, Travers, blood pressure." Giles said with a sinister smile as idly tapped a pen on the desk. Another round of muffled speaking and Giles prepared to hang up. "No, Quentin, I'd no deep, personal reason to get hold of him. I didn't even realize he was no longer in your employ, I merely wanted to ask him to research something for me, since I no longer have access to the Watcher's Library. I'll ring off then and- you _must_ be bored." Giles rifled through his notes. "We're looking for something fitting this description. And if you could find out if there are any key words in this chant..."

The trio listened as Giles gave Travers the best verbal description he could of Spike's sketch and then repeated the song from Buffy's dream.

There was silence for a minute on both ends of the line, and then very distinctly. all of them could hear Travers say, "That's rather worrisome."

"Yes, well, if that's all the information your astute mind has to offer-"

"Quite bad, Giles. The references to seven and silence remind me of something. Give me a moment..."

Giles looked balefully around the room. "He does this. He's head of the Council, and he has it confused with the Lord God Almighty." He frowned as he spoke aloud, again not caring if his rigid and uncaring ex-boss heard his words.

"Well- maybe he knows something for real, and it's worth it." Willow tried to inject a note of optimism.

"Or maybe he knows nothing and he's stalling because he has nothing better to do." Giles mumbled. "There aren't that many of us left, Travers, as you keep firing all the Watchers and you know there won't be new slayers for awhile..."

"Here." Travers' cold voice was imperious and resonant when he spoke next, loud enough for all the occupants to hear. "The mystical symbolism tables mark seven as a number of fulfillment or judgement- a plague, or a cleansing may be signified. Silence is a reference to literal silence or death."

"A plague of silence or a plague of death?" Giles repeated slowly. "That's not much to go on."

"It's more than we had." Spike looked anxiously at the girl on his lap. Plagues of the deathly sort wouldn't likely do him too much harm, but her... "What about Mr. Smiley in Slayer's vision? What is that, and how do we kill it?"

"It seems so familiar." Giles muttered, rubbing his brow.

"Yes, vaguely familiar." Travers agreed. "But I would be expecting something quite widespread to come to Sunnydale. You'd best inform your Sla-that it, the girl."

Buffy launched off Spike's lap and grabbed the phone from a surprised Giles' hand. "Tell 'the girl' yourself."

"Ah, Miss Summers. Well, I'm sure you'll deal with a plague admirably. Once you find and kill the harbingers of it, the plague would most likely stop and -"

"I'm sorry, what? Find and kill? During a plague? I don't think so." She informed him waspishly.

Willow and Giles blinked in surprise, while Spike cocked his head, a slight smile on his face. _Oh, the attitude on that little sweet girl. Pure Slayer when she wanted to pull it off._

"If you've some other method of combating them, be my guest." Travers answered icily.

"I'm not fighting anything anymore! I'm leaving town, and right now, especially since you're throwing around words like 'plague' and 'death' and 'plague of death' together is just the mondo badness of all possible combinations of those words."

Travers croaked out something unintelligible for a few seconds before asking in a hoarse voice to speak to Giles again.

"No. Why? He's not my Watcher. He can't order me to go fight the big baddies. I'm not your slayer anymore and I'm not playing in your mystical sandbox."

"What is she _doing_?" Hissed Willow in a freaked out whisper. Spike put a finger to his lips and pulled out a slip of brown paper from his jeans pocket. He tapped it and passed it to the redhead. Willow read the list, frowned in confusion, and handed it back.

"This is completely unheard of, you're a Slayer, you're made to fight evil and-"

"And it really sucks. I'm not doing it anymore, not when you guys say so. I don't work for you anymore, so unless I'm rehired-"

"I didn't fire you, so of course you may consider yourself reinstated!" Travers barked.

In spite of his dismay over Buffy's suddenly unconcerned attitude, Giles adored the effect she was having on the pompous old goat. He'd never heard him so flustered.

"With a raise?" Buffy prompted the senior Watcher.

"No,with no monetary exchange at all." he said contemptuously. "Slayers are chosen for a sacred duty, they are not corrupted by mere money." Travers seemed thoroughly shocked at her suggestion.

Buffy laughed. "Oh, buddy, _this_ slayer is. I'm packing it to small town, non-evil America if I'm not on the clock. This place is full of bad memories and monsters. I don't have any reason to stay here. Slayers are loners, right? What's to keep me here? I'm not close to anyone anymore, not since my 'chosen one-ness' kicked in."

"But surely Mr. Giles has continued his association with you?"

Buffy sighed and continued her explanations in a bored tone. "He's not obligated to stay here either. He'll probably pack up and leave when I do. Unless we have people to stay around for, the world's pretty empty, isn't it?" She cast a searing look at Spike who lowered his lids halfway and burned a heated gaze back into her.

Travers didn't like this slayer, never had. She was thoroughly unmanageable and disobedient, and turned two good men into cowboys. Fine, if she chose to ignore her duty to the world, he'd couch it in terms of self-preservation, a language he was fluent in. "Ms. Summers, seven and silence- those are two prophetically and historically bad signs. You may not be able to outrun this, you may have no choice but to fight."

"There's always a choice." She kept her gaze on Spike, smiling now, remembering all the choices they had made. Choices that no one else might like, but choices that made them happy, gave them what they needed. "And hey- according to what I-" Buffy caught her near slip, and continued. "I mean- I already died once. And slayers die really, really young. If I don't outrun it, I'll die, like all the others." She shrugged, and pushed Giles away gently as he got in front of her, trying to ask her what she was playing at.

Travers began again, angrily this time."Your sacred duty-"

Her voice was just as heated. "Is really overrated. And if I'm not supposed to have a Watcher, if I'm not supposed to have a paycheck, and I'm supposed to be all alone- how am I supposed to survive, huh? I'm thinking the San Diego 'burbs and McDonald's minimum wage beats this crap."

"You cannot outrun your fate, Slayer. Monsters are everywhere, and while others do not see them, you always will."

"Okay, so I'll fight when they bug me. The rest of the world doesn't do anything for slayers- why should I just keep doing for them?" By this time Willow looked like she might burst into tears. She smiled at Willow and held up a finger, a sign to wait a minute, signaling her concerned friends. Even without remembering past battles too well, Buffy knew this wasn't her typical attitude in the face of a dire situation. She was always looking out for others, and impossible odds didn't usually seem to bother her. But she was banking on this Travers guy not knowing her too well, and it looked like she was right.

"Why? Why? Because it's right! It is the right thing to do in this endless battle of good versus evil!" He cried.

"But paying someone to do it is wrong?" Buffy dropped the words like lead weights, and listened to them create a conflicted silence on the other end of the phone.

Finally a clipped voice asked, "How much?"

"A living wage, nothing fancy. Oh, and you have to rehire Giles. He loves me like a dad, you hate it, I love it. If I have that, I'll fight harder, do better. You have to have a reason, you know. To keep going?" She smiled around the room, looking at three of her "reasons".

"I'll draw up the papers and have them sent to Mr. Giles' home on the next plane. I'll need account information." Travers sighed bitterly. He wasn't doing it for her, no far from it. But plagues could spread. And even bodies of water didn't stop them. With no chance of getting a new Slayer until this one passed away, and with her seeming to be nigh unkillable, he decided to cut his losses and protect his own interests.

"Account information?" Buffy asked with a frown. She still couldn't remember that, or even her social security number. Come to think of it, if people hadn't told her, she doubted if she would have remembered her birth date by now. Those "important" things weren't nearly as important in her world.

Willow chimed in, pulling her laptop in front of her again. "Gimme one second, I'll get it for you."

Buffy winked. "Thanks guys. Couldn't do it without you. The best Watcher and friends in the world."

Travers realized he'd been played- even if only marginally. "What- you- you deceitful-" He stuttered in his indignation.

"Hey- you like me resourceful right? It makes me a good slayer and ooh, bonus- alive longer, so you don't have to train someone new. Consider my friends the best resources you can have. In fact, there's only one better."

"Yes, yes, a Watcher." Travers groused.

"No, he's my friend too. I meant- a husband."

"What? Not that Angelus creature?" Travers gasped in a panic. He'd read about the affair between the Slayer and the masterful vampire with a soul. Disregarding the fact that slayers had never married, he was more worried about who this one would choose. Forget about forbidding it, she'd just do whatever the hell she wanted. As always.

"No. Someone much better for me." She grinned. Speaking over the near apoplectic Travers, she concluded, "Call back when you find something on our creepy monster plague dude." Buffy gently put the receiver down and looked triumphantly at her lover.

"Spike?"

"Yes, Poppet?"

"Got the list?"

"I do." Spike flourished the brown piece of paper. "Lemme see here. Spike job, check. Slayer rehired by the Council or other job, check."

Willow laughed in relief when she fully realized what her friend had done. "Spike showed me the list but I couldn't see how in the world you were going to get Travers to rehire you- not by making him nuts! You have gotten very sneaky and devious lately."

"It's sexually transmitted." Buffy nipped at Spike's lips as he came to her side.

"I'd never have thought of that ruse." Giles confessed. "In fact, I doubt he did it for the reasons you mentioned."

"No, that kind always saves their own skin." Spike sneered. "But you gotta be able to bait 'em good to get 'em to bite."

"It was very resourceful, well done." Giles kissed Buffy's forehead gently.

"It was super gutsy." Willow nodded.

"Well- I did have a tip off." Buffy smiled. "The curtain's about to go up? Fortune favors the brave?"

"Translation by Buffy brain?" Willow asked.

"Time to act like 'Slayer', and get what I needed. Worked last night for Spike." She cuddled under Spike's arm.

"That's my girl. You can act like a real badass when you want to, Slayer." Spike chuckled appreciatively.

"Learned from the best." She purred, looking up at him with a playful smirk.

"Stop that!" Giles rapped his knuckles sharply on the desk. "We still have quite a lot to do! You two can make out later. First, your accommodations. Buffy, why don't you call your mother, tell her to expect you and Spike this evening."

"But-" Buffy began to protest.

"No. The mansion is too isolated, which is good considering the Initiative's position, and bad considering this new threat. We need you someplace central. We don't know where it'll strike."

"But-" She tried again.

"No." Giles smiled smugly. "I'm your official Watcher again, you're supposed to listen to me." Willow snorted loudly and turned it into a cough. He glared and then turned back to the blonde couple. "Plus- I'm rather worried about Angelus' old connections paying a call to the mansion eventually. They thought he was back in town just the other day, who knows when they might come to visit? And this plague- this is very worrisome."

"We don't even know what it is!"

"No, and we don't know who the creature in your dream is, either. All the more reason for you to stay in a more defensible position, near your friends and family. you did say we were your finest resources. I know things are not ideal with Joyce and I'd offer you the couch and floor again, but I know how you two feel about that. Besides- I- I'd feel better if someone kept an eye on your mother." Giles flushed and polished his glasses.

"She's going to treat me like I'm her baby girl, and I hardly remember her, still! I know she's trying, but- ughh. Stressed out-ness." Buffy wrung her hands and paced beside Spike.

"You've talked the most stubborn, pompous, small minded man in England into giving out two salaries and admitting defeat." Giles said drily. "I'm more than confident you can convince Joyce to welcome you two with open arms and a fruit basket."

"Not bloody likely." Spike muttered. "No matter. We'll talk her 'round, Slayer, nothin' we can't do."

"Mmmpp." Buffy whimpered and plopped down with a frown.

Giles ignored her and picked up the phone.

"Waitwaitwaitwait!"Buffy cried frantically, speaking so fast her pleas turned into one long word, turning pale. "I'm not ready, I don't even know what to say!"

"Give us a second, mate!" Spike protested on her behalf.

"I'm not calling your mother, I'm calling a friend I had coming to stay next week! Heaven only knows this isn't the best time for house guests." _Considering what usually happens when Olivia and I get together 'for old times' sake', combined with trying to look after Joyce- not that Joyce should matter, that is to say... dear Lord, it's just not a good time._ Giles flushed and put the phone to his ear turning away from his audience.

"Good point." Willow resumed scanning webpages. "If we're all about to get all Black Plague-y around here, no one should come into this town."

* * *

><p>"We're in town, General. Coordinates?"<p>

"Nothing different from the last set I gave you, but I've got some directions. The campus. You'll want a place just off of the bike path. Look for the Lowell House fraternity, and you need to speak for a man named Riley Finn. He'll grant you access and take you to the current C.O." Fremont said wearily. He hadn't slept much in the last couple days.

"Primary objective, Sir?"

One word, spoken heavily, spoken with a wealth of fury at a woman single handedly ruining fifty odd years worth of work with one misplaced idea, one misplaced misinterpretation of the mission. "Walsh."

* * *

><p>Walsh sat up in the corner of her cell. Footsteps. Footsteps weren't good. They hadn't brought her food or water since she arrived, so the only time footsteps had been heard meant she was about to get either threatened or pulverized.<p>

"- the one hand's probably gone off by now. You can tell if the blood is still red when you squeeze it."

"Well, what if we cook it?"

"Cook your meat? You barbarian! You've been watching the Food Network again."

"Human television is hysterical, Martin."

"It really isn't. It's like watching puppet shows with food. Speaking of which..."

Maggie's eyes squeezed shut and her arms wrapped around her knees more tightly._ Fear is an emotion. Emotion is weakness. I will not be afraid. I will not let these inferior, weak minded monsters bring me to their level of sub-par cognitive functioning._

Her demon captors walked briskly into her cell, and without preamble dragged her to her feet. One of them squeezed her broken hand tightly, making blood drip out.

Maggie's screams echoed off the corridor. _Pain, however, is not an emotion, that is a biological response to negative nerve ending stimulus. Pain is valid. I can feel pain. And the pain- is almost as bad as the fear that I refuse to admit I'm feeling as well._

Black, thickened blood oozed out slowly from her crushed hand."Ugh. Dammit. That's gone bad. Well, we have the other hand, and we can always start on the feet, they're almost as good."

"I guess." The other demon shrugged resignedly. "Would you hold her better than that? I don't want her wriggling all over the place."

"If I squeeze her any harder, I'll break her ribs."

"So? That's not gonna kill her. And it's not her head, that's the only thing we're not allowed to touch."

"Good point."

Maggie felt the air being squashed from her so suddenly that she started to see black stars before her already weakened eyes. She felt the colder, rough hands, with their non-human skin, grabbing her arm, pulling it forward. The exact same way they had broken her other hand...

"I have to make a call." She choked out with the last ounce of air she had.

Her captors froze. "We could pretend she didn't say until after?" One hinted.

"He said no games."

"How's he gonna know?"

"It's Angel. He knows stuff. If he doesn't, he'll guess, and he doesn't like us anyway." He dropped her hand. "Not worth it. I like living."

Maggie was shoved between them. "Stupid human cow bitch. Take her to the damn phone."

* * *

><p>"This is Angel Investigations." Angel pounced on the phone as he had done for the tenth time that day. And for this first time, he smiled. A slow, sinister smile that almost never crossed his face anymore. His voice was a positively dark purr. "Hey, Mags. Good to hear from you."<p>

_To be continued..._


	19. Chapter 19

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Notes: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Dedicated to DLillith21, ginar369, Lil-Leti, Vera Snape-Evans, Marene, MMWillow, Sweet-T3,trashyfiction, Fanficfemale, McPastey, Searching-for-my-Reason, Lithium Reaper, and Little Missy123 _

_Additional Author's note: Quick chapter, longer one in the next week, I promise! It picks up immediately after chapter XVIII so you may want to re-read that, or at least the end bit. I've been writing "Unmentionable" so much that I neglected this fic, and I'm so sorry, readers!_

_Thank you for your support! **This ****story ****has ****been ****nominated ****at ****The ****Sunnydale ****Memorial ****Fanfiction ****Awards,** (located at sunnyd awardsdot dragonydreamsdot com/indexdothtml) in the following categories: _

_Best New Author, Best Drama, Best Pairing Conventional, Best Unfinished_

_**If you like it, please go vote for it!**_

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part XIX

"Tell me what you want me to do. What exactly does it take to get me out of here?" Maggie demanded in a tense, urgent voice, phone cradled weakly in her remaining usable hand.

"It's very simple. You call the top brass guy and give him some very good reasons to shut down your little brain frying branch of the military and leave Sunnydale." Angel answered in a snarl.

"They might not listen to me-"

"Oh, you'll be _very_ convincing. Your life depends on it." He said in a low, cold voice.

"I'll call him." Walsh hissed frantically as one of her captors loomed close to her as she spoke on the phone. "You get me out of here. Now."

"I'll get you out of there when your boys get out of town. But I can make things better for you until then." He stood up at his desk and reached for his coat. "You don't make a call until I'm there. I want to hear exactly what you say. No tricks. No bluffs. Play it straight, you live. Try to play _me_- well, let's just say the cell you're in now will seem like heaven to the places I can ask them to put you. But there won't be a problem, will there, Mags?"

"No." Walsh whispered.

"Good. Then we'll make sure you're taken care of until I get there. Let me speak to one of the guards."

Maggie stepped away from the phone and pointed at the warden who'd escorted her to make the call, unwilling to speak to him, and unwilling to admit that the brutal demon might be anywhere near her intelligence level, even after all the exchanges she'd heard.

"Hello?" the guard named Martin picked up the phone, assuming that was what the dumb human wanted. Call themselves a superior race. They kill their own kind for sport, something his race would never do, although any other breed was fair game. He rolled his eyes and shoved her roughly into a chair to make sure she didn't try to limp off.

"I'm going to be there soon." Angel said briskly. "Have you taken care of her?"

"Well- we smashed her hand. But her head's just fine."

Angel felt his soul give him a little sting, but an image of Buffy's blank look when she saw him superimposed itself over the twinge of conscience. The bitch lost a hand. A hand wasn't much compared to someone's mind. Someone's life and loves, all swept away by a sudden jab of some new weapon, as quickly as getting a bee sting."Yeah? Well- good. but leave her alone now. Make sure she eats and she's comfortable."

"Comfortable? We're a prison colony. We don't have 'comfortable', Angelus."

"It's just Angel." He insisted bitterly, speaking over the chant of the demon inside, glorying in hearing his old name. "Fine. Make sure she doesn't get any more 'uncomfortable' than she already is, okay?"

"Will do."

"I'll be there soon." He reassured. "Any screw ups, and I'll take out a guard for every hour she was there. Unless you want to lose a few dozen men- don't be stupid." He hung up the phone and grabbed his keys and a few weapons, and out into the dusk.

Martin stared at the phone and then at the cowering female prisoner. "Wow." He shook his head wonderingly, trying to reconcile all the legendary brutality of Angelus and all the stories of the new, 'champion for good' Angel into one mental concept and then add in this thing with this human. "You really did something to that vampire."

Maggie didn't speak to him, but she murmured to herself. "Not to him... to the woman he loved."

Martin's face hardened. He had a mate, back home, in his dimension. A mate he'd get home to as soon as his posting was up, a mate he'd kill for without a second's pause. A mate he loved. All demons were capable of it, though it was a twisted and dark love compared to human standards, Still, love was a universally spoken language. "That explains a lot. Angel didn't send us a human. He sent us a monster with a human face." He dragged Maggie roughly back to her cell. He tossed her inside roughly and walked away.

Angel, Angelus, this vampire in the middle. This human, this creature in the cell, only a human on the surface. "It all makes perfect sense."

* * *

><p>"No, see, it all makes perfect sense." Willow said eagerly to Joyce, her wide eyes at their widest and most pleading. "They can stay here and protect you and- and the neighborhood is kind of central, and all of us live close together..."<p>

"I'm not arguing with that, Willow." Joyce explained patiently as she paced in front of the assembled group of Buffy, Spike, Willow, Giles, Xander, and Anya. The entire group had come over to discuss living arrangements for the hunted couple, and Buffy was stubbornly insisting on one big deal breaker. "But Buffy and Spike can't share a room. Not in my house. I won't condone it. I won't allow it."

"But they've been sharing a room since they got zapped." Anya said helpfully. Or not so helpfully, she guessed, judging by the glares.

"We _are_ gettin' married, Joyce." Spike reminded her gently. "Not sayin' the conditions are ideal, but Slayer's salary kicks in soon, an' I start work on Monday. Have a little flat before you know it, an' we'll be out of your hair."

Joyce blinked. "Work? Salary?"

"Oh- yeah." Buffy had huddled next to Spike for the entire conversation, looking and feeling extremely miserable at the conflict going on around her. Just like that, around her- all of it touching her, but feeling herself barely involved. Looking at a life that was just starting to be hers again, and looking at a mother who'd loved her for years- and a vampire who'd loved her for weeks- knowing if there was a choice, she'd walk out of the house, out of town, with Spike. Feeling guilty because she wasn't going to put her mother before her own wants and needs, and feeling guilty because she knew that guilt was fast fading. Caught in a dread cycle of warring emotions, of past life and desired future, she just answered her mother's question and said nothing more."They're going to pay me something for slaying, and Spike's going to work at this demon bar." Buffy reported in a flat voice.

"There's a demon bar?" Joyce sat down hard. "I can't take this."

Giles was swift to offer her a comforting arm- something that surprised all of them, as he was typically not one to touch. "Joyce, try to recall our conversation of the other day? Ultimatums, recognizing Buffy's integral role in our lives, no matter the circumstances."

Joyce looked at him with challenging eyes. "I agree with a lot of what you said the other day, but I think I'm being very reasonable. Furthermore, I honestly don't think my only daughter is going to run off and leave with a man she barely knows just because I make him sleep in the guest bedroom."

"I would." Buffy whispered solemnly, eyes downcast.

"That's kinda harsh, Buff." Xander felt compelled to speak. "Kinda immature- and when _I_ say that- ye gods, someone had better listen."

"Watch your mouth, boy." Spike snarled. "You know nothin' about it." This wasn't some little fling. This was his future wife. He didn't so much mind the objection itself, he could understand how a mum wouldn't want to think of her daughter shaggin' the unlivin' daylights in the next room. He just didn't like where the objection came from- the desire, however veiled, to downplay their importance in each others' lives, trying to separate them from the only things they truly felt were theirs.

"Buffy, I think I've been more than understanding." Joyce began in a tight, angry voice.

"No!" Buffy looked up at her mother, her face still so unfamiliar, hardly hitting any registering chords in a shadowy memory. "No, you don't understand at all! Any of you. You think- you think I _want_ to need someone so badly? I don't! Or at least, I didn't, and now I'm just confused... I was apparently born to be some hardcore loner, and it's a miracle that I even have a family, or friends four years into this mystical calling deal." She cast a long look at Giles. "I did my reading. Most slayers don't make it this far. The ones who do have a Watcher, and I didn't read too much about having anyone else. No moms, no dads..."

Willow and Xander exchanged a worried look. They'd never read all the Watchers' Diaries. They knew Buffy was an unusual case, and they were proud to be part of that. But they'd had time, a lot of time, to realize that Buffy was cheating fate, making her own job description. Buffy was just getting all of it thrown at her in a few weeks and told it was her destiny, no way out of it.

"They may not have been mentioned Buffy. They may no longer have been- involved- in their children's lives." Giles said stiffly. He knew it was a rarity to find a Slayer with any kind of intact family. He'd known everything about Buffy was rare, but hearing her say it- he realized how truly tragic it was. For so many young women to have such abbreviated lives, it was horrific. To realize so many had so little, and Buffy still had so much just made her stand out even more. She drew strength from her friends. No wonder she'd survived so much longer, with so much more than any of the others. She had something to fight for, just as she'd said time and time again to him through this ordeal.

"Don't you see how wrong that is?" Buffy gave them all a quizzical, bewildered look. "That there's no one for kids who aren't even legal adults? That so many girls don't even have parents?" She bit her lip, a gesture mirrored by her three friends who sat nodding their heads in sympathy.

"But you _do_ have parents, Honey. Parents who love you very much." Joyce soothed, coming closer.

Buffy shook her head and leaned away, backing further into Spike's embrace, hand on her chest. "Yeah. I did. Then it all gets ripped away in one night, with one little sting. Parents, Watchers, friends, everything I loved, except for one thing. Even slaying, that didn't stick in my mind, but Spike did. You think I like being afraid? Because I hate it. I hate knowing I'm supposed to die in a few years, and he's supposed to be immortal. I hate knowing maybe my fate hinges on being in love with someone strong enough to help keep me alive. I hate wondering if everyone gets that I'm actually in love. With him. The _person_." Buffy looked at Spike with brimming eyes.

"Poppet, you don't have to-"

Buffy spoke over him, fiercely. "But you know what I really hate?" Buffy stood up, voice shaking, and looked at her mother, her Watcher, her friends, swiveling slowly to meet each one's eyes. "I hate that you think I'm being selfish and immature because I want to share a room with the man I love. The one thing I had when I had nothing else. The one person I can be with, that no other Slayers ever get to have the chance to have. Because you think it's for sex."

"Well-" Anya began and Xander and Willow shushed her violently.

"Yeah, that part is great, but that's not the reason. It's because I can't be apart from him anymore. He's my world. He's all that was in it when I got this forced reset on reality, and if you take it away- and I wake up in the night without him-" Buffy's eyes overflowed, "well, I guess now you know all that stuff about slayers being brave is just a myth, because I'd be terrified. I can pretend to be brave with that Travers jerk, and I can fool vampires, play 'Slayer' with the people in that demon bar. I can be brave with them, because I have to, it's part of this Chosen One thing. But being in love- and having a mom- that's a not a Slayer thing, because slayers apparently just don't have that. It's a _Buffy_ thing, whoever she was. That's who I'm supposed to be... and I'm re-learning it. I just don't feel very courageous when it's really real. If anything is ever real..." Buffy trailed off, and gave Spike a despairing look, knowing what she was saying must sound so confusing. How do you explain to someone who's never experienced the complete loss of memory what it's like to have it restored piece by piece, but not really feel like it's yours anymore? This was a new world, a new life, and she couldn't afford to make old mistakes again.

"I know what you mean." Spike whispered.

"I know you do! You're the _only_ one who can really get it, what it's like to lose everything and rebuild it. I'm trying to remember how to be some warrior, before I can even remember how to be a person!" She scrubbed at her eyes with her wrist. "I'm sorry to let you guys down, but it I'm not some big hero. Not for real. Not like I used to be, not like I should be."

"Shh, shh, that's not so." Spike was wrapping her in his arms before anyone could even speak. The group sat in a stunned, reflective silence.

Giles broke it. "No, Buffy. Your valor in battle isn't a myth- it's _mythic_. You're as brave as any I've ever seen. As any the world will ever see."

"Real courage is telling the truth- even when it's hard. Even if it isn't what you want it to be." Willow whispered, rising from the couch.

Buffy ignored them both, and looked at Spike. "I just want to go home." She said miserably. "We've been working so hard -but I'm so tired of forcing things to work. I just want to go home." She repeated painfully.

"I _am_ your home, Luv. You're mine. As long as we're together, we're golden, Pet. You know that." He kissed each trembling eyelid and hoped he wouldn't start the waterworks himself. His heart, cold and dead or not, still twisted painfully when she was so miserable. "You an' me, Luv, we have our own world, an' I know you feel lost..." He brushed her hair away from her damp cheek. "We're not, though. Not as long as we've got each other. An' you don't have to be brave for me. I know how strong you are, an' I know you're hurtin' inside. Doesn't mean you're weak." He gave her a small, crooked smile. "Means you're human. Damn sight better than me. You'll always be_ my_ hero, Slayer. However things go."

"I'm sorry I fell apart." Buffy whispered, trying to force her mouth into a smile as well.

"If you never fell apart, how'd I ever get to prove I could catch you, right, Luv?" He pulled her tight to his chest, shutting out the rest of the world. "I've got you. Always got you. Never gonna let you go." He murmured against her brow.

Joyce watched the two of them, like watching a movie she'd never seen. Just looking at the story that unfolded, not really knowing the characters. She supposed she hadn't really known Buffy at all, not in the last four years. Her daughter had become someone else.

Joyce felt a stab inside. Her baby had changed, and she hadn't even seen it for what it was. She'd spent all her time trying to 'fix' it, put her back to the way she was. Sunnydale was supposed to have been their clean slate- and now it was. Literally. Her Buffy was starting over.

But she was still her Buffy, and she was still in her life. She could start over with her, or she could keep trying to force her back into the mold that was broken a long time ago. She swallowed. If she had to take Spike to keep Buffy, so be it. And she had to do it decisively. Or she'd lose them both.

"Come here, Baby." Joyce whispered, holding open her arm, touching Buffy's shoulder gently with timid, but firm, fingertips.

Buffy turned hesitantly, lifting her head from under Spike's jaw , the faintest trace of hope in her eyes, a dull gleam under layers of pain and exhaustion. "Mom..."

"Come here. Come here, both of you." Joyce widened her arms, looking meaningfully at spike.

Spike pushed Buffy forward, but held back himself.

Joyce swallowed again. She reached out a grabbed his hand, trying not to jump when she realized she was touching something dead, yet alive. A vampire. Touching a vampire on purpose. He was cool, but not cold, his skin was soft and human, but with a stillness that didn't quite fit in with humanity's touch. "If you're going to be my son-in-law, you'd better get used to being hugged, Spike."

Buffy let herself be pulled into the embrace, feeling Spike at her side, her mother at her front, and let out a little broken sobbing sound as she swallowed a mouthful of tears. "This isn't real." She gasped out. "You'll change your mind, won't you?" It had happened before. She knew it. She might not remember it, but she felt it in her gut, that things had been rocky for a long time, that a lot of trust was gone. Maybe it couldn't be replaced.

"No. No, Sweetie." Joyce felt a pang at her child's words. Because suddenly they rang true. She'd tried to be supportive and failed, many times. And she had always been quick to lay the blame. To punish. All the times she'd grounded her daughter, or lectured her for doing normal, irresponsible teen things like being late or missing school- and her daughter had been out saving lives, saving the world. She'd taken the blame for tiny, teenage infractions when her actions were heroic, and far from what any normal teenager was capable of. She'd been punished for helping people. Maybe Buffy didn't remember that, but Joyce did. "I promise. I'm not changing my mind. You and Spike started over. I'd like that same chance- if you'll let me?"

Buffy laughed once. "Yes! Yes, I'll let you." She hugged her mom fiercely, Spike's restraining arm reminding her not to squeeze to the point of injury.

Giles watched Joyce's face smooth out in contentment, even in the midst of all this worry. She looked suddenly serene. Loving her child unreservedly. It must be wonderful to do that. To be granted a fresh page in someone's book. Giles sighed deeply. "Maybe we can all start over." Giles said with a hint of a question in his voice, eyes locked on Joyce's over Buffy's shoulder.

"I'd like that." Joyce whispered softly, and smiled.

_To be continued..._


	20. Chapter 20

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Notes: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Dedicated to DLillith21, ginar369, Lil-Leti, Vera Snape-Evans, Ero-Neko- Hime, MMWillow, Sweet-T3, trashyfiction, Fanficfemale, McPastey, Searching-for-my-Reason, Lithium Reaper, and Little Missy123 _

_Thank you for your support! **This ****story ****has ****been ****nominated ****at ****The ****Sunnydale ****Memorial ****Fanfiction ****Awards,** (located at sunnyd awardsdot dragonydreamsdot com/indexdothtml) in the following categories: _

_Best New Author, Best Drama, Best Pairing Conventional, Best Unfinished_

_**If you like it, please go vote for it!**_

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part XX

"You stay in tonight. All of us should." Giles said awhile later. The day had been exhausting, the night more so. Buffy and Joyce were talking, actually, properly talking, like two people getting to know each other, not like one person demanding things of the other. In fact, all of them were talking like that. Without pasts insisting on being recognized as much as people insisting on being heard. He noticed that not only did Buffy seem happier, but Spike and Anya seemed more at ease. "We've had a long day."

"Amen." Spike raised his mug at Giles in agreement.

"But trouble's a-brewin'." Xander reminded the Watcher. "Shouldn't we be researching?"

"I'd like us to get inside for the night. I'll do some preliminary digging, and we can meet again to research in the morning."

"What time?" Joyce asked.

Giles did a double take. Willow made a little squeak and Anya said bluntly, "You don't help research. You're not a Scooby."

"Well- I may not have superpowers, but I know how to read." Joyce replied, trying not to laugh at the sledgehammer statement.

"That'd be lovely if Joyce helped, wouldn't it?" Spike said quickly. His girl was glowing. Positively beaming.

"Er- yes! Yes, it would be lovely. Although- it might not be the most enjoyable activity."

"I'm a mother. I do unenjoyable activities for my child. Diaper changes were never a picnic, but someone had to do it. I can spare a couple hours to look up- what are we looking up? Those secret agents with the army base?"

"Something equally unpleasant." Giles muttered bitterly.

"We already unleashed the fury of Super Willow, Hacker Witch extraordinaire, on those goons. The government should be stepping in soon." Xander said with a pat on Willow's shoulder.

"We hope." Willow mumbled nervously.

"We have to deal with another threat, Mom, some prophetic dream with reaaally creepy guys. Other people might be able to help with the Initiative, but only the slayer- and her team- can work on this other thing." Buffy smiled around the room. For the first time since the attack, she felt safe and at peace with someone besides Spike. He would still be her world- but maybe she could let other people in it.

* * *

><p>Riley opened the door of the Lowell House with a tense expression, knowing who he was about to let in- but not sure what would happen once they crossed the threshold.<p>

"Agent Finn?"

"Yes, Sir!" Riley recognized the man as a a superior officer, a colonel judging by the insignia.

"I'm Colonel Andrews, Pentagon Attachment to Special Programs."

"Yes, Sir. Come in, Sir."

"At ease, Finn. You've been doing a fine job running the show for the last day." The older man's face creased into a smile and then hardened. "But I'm here now."

"You're assuming command, Sir?"

"I'm heading an investigation. Now, there's no need to worry." Andrews waved a team of six men in dress uniforms into the house after him. "We know all of you have been following orders. Your loyalty to the government isn't in question."

Riley nodded, mind spinning with guilt. Loyalty. To humans, to the government, to Buffy, to Maggie. Loyalty was even done in shades of gray in this hellhole. "Yes, Sir. No, Sir."

"Good. The thing in question is how this operation is being handled. I need to speak to Dr. Margaret Walsh."

"We've been searching for her, Sir. I've had teams out since the moment she was reported missing, and we've found no trace."

Andrews sighed and nodded. "I see. In that case- show me to the labs. My team and I will start there."

"Right through here." Riley nodded to the dress suited group and lead them towards one of the passage walls.

"After you show us around, I'm relieving you for the next eight hours. You look like you've been in the trenches, solider."

"Oh, no, Sir, I've just been worried." _That Buffy and Spike took matters into their own hands and killed Walsh._ "I haven't slept."

"Then sleep. At least rest. That's an order." Andrews instinctively liked the man, had heard good things about him. He wouldn't mind taking him under his own project- but he didn't think Finn would sit for a desk job yet. Billings would probably snap him up in a second, haul him around the world to destroy demons wherever they lurked.

"Thank you, Colonel. I have some things I'd like to do that I haven't been able to get to in the last day or so." Riley led the group through the passage and into the bright white cubicle of an elevator. _First thing I'm going to do- before sleeping, before eating- is talk to Buffy..._

* * *

><p>Buffy curled up beside Spike, in the bed they'd shared once before. But in an empty house... She shifted uneasily. "She's right down the hall."<p>

"An' she makes a mean cuppa cocoa." Spike chuckled.

"She- she's going to help. With stuff. That's new. I think. The helping, I mean." Buffy rambled, more to take her mind off of the hunk of sexual power beside her than because she wanted to dwell on her mother's newfound involvement.

" 'Course she is. You bring out the best in people." Spike rolled to his side, hand resting lightly on her tee shirt clad stomach. She instinctively arched up, and then blushingly sank down. "What? Can't touch my girl?"

"We're all noisy." Buffy reminded him with a wrinkled nose. He laughed softly at her, finding it adorable, and kissed her.

"Weren't always noisy. We can be dead quiet." Spike traced her ribs through the thin fabric of a faded teeshirt, leading higher and higher, up to a breast, then finding a nipple and grazing it with his thumb. Buffy bit down a gasp. "We've done a lot for the Slayer side in the bedroom lately."

"And the bathroom, hallway, floor..." Buffy teased.

"But you're still my Poppet, my Buffy. I can be slow an' soft as anything you want."

"I know you can be, Baby."

"If you don't want to-"

"Oh, I want to. I just don't want my mother to think- well, you know. I said I needed to be with you. Not just for physical stuff."

Spike kissed her lips with a silent smile, turning out the lights with one hand, cupping her face in the other. "This is emotional stuff, Luv. Makin' love has never been just about slidin' into you, although it feels so bloody fantastic, that's reason enough."

Buffy's hands slid up his bare back and encouraged him to roll on top of her. After a few minutes of heated kisses, she felt his hand grip her waistband and tug her sweat shorts down. "I love you."

"Love you. Want you. Have you." Spike murmured urgently, kissing her neck, her scarred pulse point. His nostrils flared and his eyes dilated as he inhaled the intoxicating scent of love and blood.

"Can you still bite quietly?" Buffy whispered, bucking her hips against his, urging him to sheath himself inside her warmth.

"I dunno. Must be able to. Vampires can't always draw attention to themselves when they feed- an' this isn't for feedin', so it oughta be easier. Or not." He suddenly groaned when her slick, silken walls enveloped his straining erection.

"Shhh! Sh, Baby." She held him close.

Spike shivered suddenly in her arms. He'd always given the love. He'd never felt someone do it back. Not like this. One of the things he knew but didn't remember. "You got me, too?" He asked.

"You're always mine." Buffy reminded him in a barely audible voice.

"It's been a long road." He murmured, lifting her throat to his kisses as they deepened. "Long, dark, bad road to get where I was s'posed to be." Over a century of darkness to finally hit the light he found in this girl.

"But you got there in the end. We both did." Buffy pressed him more firmly into herself, legs locking around his, gliding with him, nice and easy, steady.

"Just a few more things to do." Spike's visage shifted. "I can still be gentle like this, can't I?"

Buffy felt the power of his rocking hips increase, but not to the usual level of intensity that Spike's vampiric side brought out. "Very gentle." She praised with a grin.

Spike smiled down on her, a low purring starting to reverberate between them. Buffy's breathing sped up, and she grasped him more tightly. "Shhh. Shhh, jus' us. No matter where we are." Spike made a soothing comment as much to her as to him.

"I know." She made a desperate grind to him, trapping him high and tight inside her self. "Sometimes it's better to feel more like a 'one', than an 'us'."

"We're gonna be one. Think it's in the vows." Spike nodded into her cleavage, licking a trail along her throat, following a throbbing, light blue green vein under her honey skin until it disappeared under the darker skin of her nipple.

"Love, honor, obey- I'm not saying obey." Buffy gasped into his oral embrace.

"Wouldn't request it. It wouldn't make either of us happy. How 'bout 'love, honor, an' comfort? Or encourage."

"You're so sweet. How are you so sweet?" Buffy demanded rhetorically.

"Mmm, Pet, you're the sweet one. I don't care what we say, s'long as it makes you mine."

Buffy felt a strange tugging inside her, something she'd often said needed saying again. Needed to be said differently, and she replied automatically. "Yours. Mine."

Spike growled, a low purring growl, also automatic. "Vows. My kind."

"Say them." Buffy urged.

Spike paused. "No ring." His amber eyes narrowed. "They don't use rings. It's bites."

"So bite me." Buffy whispered urgently, feeling a climax burning her soft, sensitive hollow as it tried to break free and she denied it.

"I'm not s'posed to. I think I'm not s'posed to-" Spike frowned. "God dammit. Somethin' happens if we do this... if we do it a certain way. I don't know what it is though."

"What does your instinct tell you to do? We- we can trust instinct, even if we can't trust other stuff." Buffy reminded him through a confused haze of pleasure.

"Says somethin' hard, somethin' violent, an' I don't want to be like that tonight. Tonight should be just for sweet things, easy things."

"Spike." Buffy stilled his head as it shook in regret. "I don't for one minute think you can't make anything you want feel sweet and easy." She traced the lowered, arching brows that framed feral yellow eyes. "My Baby's always inside, blue eyes or golden." She smiled lovingly up at him. "To tell you the truth- I've stopped noticing a difference. I mean, I see it- but I just think- 'Spike. It's Spike, the man I love."

Spike hadn't known the demon could feel so soppy, so close to tears. He didn't know that those monstrous eyes could cry. _She's got us both now, dead to rights. You'll roll over an' play nice here on in, without me shaklin' you._ The demonic side didn't roar, didn't protest, merely gave a sharp pang of agreement, somewhere deep inside his chest, maybe where a soul used to be.

Spike blinked before tattletale tears could overflow, and kissed her. "Mine." He murmured, and held her close. "My beautiful girl. My deadly girl. My girl."

"Yours." She repeated, kissing him, nibbling him, tongue slowly slipping through fangs as they melded together.

Spike bit his own lip hard in sudden ecstasy as she keened breathlessly into his mouth, starting to let go on him. It wasn't until he felt a spurt of hot, sweet, fresh blood that he realized he'd speared her lip as well.

Buffy's eyes widened and she licked her lip, turning her head. Lukewarm metallic blood was mixing with her own, which was a familiar taste one gets used to when you get hit in the mouth on a nightly basis. But his was with hers now, still flowing steadily, because of the strength of his jaw and the sharpness of his teeth.

Spike licked his lips slowly. "One." He murmured.

"One?"Buffy repeated, swallowing the bitter coppery fluid coating the inside of her cheek.

"One blood. It's the blood. It' s blood what binds us." He said. "The words mean you want it. Do you want it?"

"Of course." Buffy whispered, even though she was lost.

"I dunno what happens though." He warned.

"We never know what's happening. But as long as it's us together- that's enough." Buffy soothed.

"Kiss me again, Lover." Spike whispered.

Buffy lifted her lips to his, felt them join, and felt the sharp but not painful prickle of fangs scraping open her bottom lip, and his own.

"I love you. Mine. My only one." He rasped.

"Your only one." Buffy agreed and gasped as Spike strong fingers pressed her gullet and she swallowed. He swallowed as well, feeling precious scarlet fluid, imbued with new power, easing down an ice white throat.

Twin jolts hit them, making them release as one, long, silent, wracking spasms that left them unable to move, or even speak.

"What?" Buffy finally managed to croak.

Spike managed a weak version of his smug smirk. "B'lieve the weddin' is a mere formality now, Slayer."

Buffy's eyes widened. "What?" She repeated more insistently.

"Remember the army gits callin' you my mate?" He hinted.

"Yeah..." Buffy finally got it. " Oh! _Oh_!" Her face turned grave.

"Are you okay with that, Poppet?" Spike forced himself to ask, although hearing a refusal would destroy him.

"Okay with it? _Okay_ with it? It's fantastic!" Buffy enthused. "But what's it do?"

"Honestly, I don't think it does much in our case. Can't imagine bein' more in love with you or anything." He shrugged. "But it's bloody marvelous to have some kind of a claim on the person you love." His brow furrowed. "Claim."

"Claim?"

Spike shrugged again. "Odd thing to say." He burrowed down beside her. "So... _mate,_ what're we gonna do about my last name? Wanna be Mrs. Bloody?"

Buffy wrinkled her nose. "Well, I know you're really old school... literally-"

"Oi." He nipped her shoulder softly. "No cracks about my elderliness."

"- but," she continued as if he hadn't interrupted, "how would you feel about us using Summers?"

"Fine, Luv, nice name." He replied easily. "Although I'd kinda like to know my real name. My family name... maybe I wouldn't have to wait so long to find out who I was, wait on the memory to come back. Hundred years worth of memory is gonna take a long time to regain, I'd reckon, even with our accelerated healin'."

Buffy stroked his hair, turning a sandier shade since it hadn't been bleached since the attack. "We'll find out. And I'll use Bloody if you want me to. I'd do anything in the world for you. Just like you would for me."

"Without a doubt." He smiled at her. "Get some rest, Luv. Big day ahead of us, all that research and worryin' with your mates an' Giles."

Buffy smiled back at him. "Sweet dreams." She kissed him softly.

"If you're in 'em, they will be."

* * *

><p>Giles settled down with a hot cup of tea and a well worn novel, ready to enjoy his first early, potentially undisturbed night in weeks. In spite of the stress of all surrounding them, he felt a pleasant peace soothing him. Joyce was coming over tomorrow, for one thing. She and Buffy were making a fresh start. Spike was reforming. All of them were beginning anew. He had a steady paycheck about to be reinstated, because if Buffy was back on the clock, he would be, too. Everything had changed, but it might actually be better. And Joyce was coming over tomorrow... Giles felt a foolish grin cross his face, realizing in the midst of all the earth-shattering changes occurring, that was still the one he was dwelling on.<p>

"Well, off to bed, old man. Take your tea and go." He urged himself up. "Must look a hundred after all these late nights and -" There was a sudden pounding on the front door. Giles looked heavenward with a glare. "Oh, very funny." He turned and stomped back down the stairs.

"Riley? Come in, are you in trouble?" Giles saw who it was and did two things at once, opening the door with a look of concern and sliding a curved dagger- used for ceremonial rites but was currently awaiting polishing on his side table- into his bathrobe pocket.

"I'm fine." Riley pushed past his own concerns and leapt to the main point. "Professor Walsh is missing. Where are Buffy and Spike?"

"Missing? Buffy- why?" Giles peered at the young man over his glasses, hand unobtrusively slipping into his pocket.

"We can't find a trace. Not a_ trace_. And she never checked in. That's unlike her. So unlike her." Riley paced, hands raking through already unkempt hair, bangs pushing back from a creased brow. "You have no idea, she doesn't have anything else, she lives for this job." Riley froze and his blue eyes sawed through Giles. "And now my question is- did she die for it, too?"

* * *

><p>"Unless you'd like to die a slow, rotting death, inch by inch, flesh melting away into a stinking pulp- I'd start talking. Tell me the number." Angel purred, head by the worn professor's ear. When she didn't respond- he poked her blackened hand, and she screeched. "Gangrene, Mags, and soon. Or me. 'Cause I gotta tell you- driving down here and you suddenly wanting to play 'let's make a deal' isn't working out for me."<p>

"I- can't give you the number, I'll dial it." Maggie hissed.

Angel paused. "Fine. I hold the phone, you make the call. I listen. One wrong word exits those lips- I'll just have to rip 'em off."

"Bastard." Maggie muttered.

"Nah... my folks were married. I'm never gonna get that chance." His eyes narrowed. "If I held out any hope... any little thought in the back of my mind, that someday, _maybe_ I- that maybe she and I could find some-" He trailed off with a snarl. "Just dial."

"What do you want me to tell them? That we tag demons? They know that. This program has been around for decades." She slowly pushed the buttons with her one good hand. "It's strategy. Find the strongest things in life, turn them to your advantage. That's why we have guns, bombs, mines."

"Uh-huh. I get that. I know all about your program, all about your little forays into demon research and harnessing our powers." Angel rolled his eyes skyward and shook his head at Walsh's contemptuous tone. "The key word being 'harnessing'. Not actually replacing humans with demons."

Walsh blanched and her finger hovered over the last button.

He laughed at her deepening pallor. "What? You think it isn't pretty obvious to anyone who's on the outside, looking in? Anyone who isn't blindly following orders?" His laugh deepened, sardonic and black. "Why else would you send your soldiers out at night to 'tag' demons and then erase their memories? You can't make them forget what they were, what they can do. You could only retrain them to do it for you." He peered into Maggie's bloodshot eyes, that puppy dog innocent look on his face. "Never heard it summed up so pretty? Or so ugly?" His voice softened to a low rasp. "Make. The. _Call._"

As if moving by remote control, no will of her own, she hit the final key and waited for the phone to ring through at the other end. Soon a metallic voice answered, "Classified line. Please enter your ten digit clearance code."

Maggie glanced at him. "I don't re-"

"Remember it." Angel warned, hand sliding smoothly to the back of her neck. "I'm sure it'll come to you..." He tightened his grip slightly.

Maggie punched in the number hurriedly. The voice spoke again. "Walsh, Margaret. Please enter your fourteen digit security identification number." Knowing better than to risk another falsified attempt at forgetfulness, she did so. "Enter the extension of the party you wish to reach, then the pound sign, followed by most current alphanumeric password."

"Geez, you guys are as bad as the phone company." Angel mumbled. Maggie sighed and continued pressing numbers, lips pressed in a thin line of pain and resistance.

"Fremont speaking."

"Sir." Maggie made an effort to sound calm.

"Walsh? Is this Walsh? This is Walsh's code."

"This is Walsh." Her voice shook slightly.

"Where the hell are you? What the _fuck_ are you doing? Information has been leaked everywhere, to everyone! Internal affairs, an official board of inquiry, the President himself- everyone is up my ass and _you_ are gonna pay for it."

"She already is." Angel's voice whispered down the line and froze Fremont in his chair.

"Who is this?" He asked warily.

"Angel. Look it up. Cross reference 'submarine'." He spat.

Fremont didn't need to look anything up. The Initiative started in during the war, and every officer attached to the senior ranks read that noble, secret history, cover to cover. Angel's name appeared on the first failed mission- and the only mission for twenty years. "What do you want with Walsh?"

Angel jabbed Maggie and she croaked out. "Sir- there's something about the project. Something that-"

"That you neglected to tell me?" Fremont spoke over her. His lines were shared now. Protection, they called it. Internal espionage, they meant. "I know. I know that you you went above and beyond the mission's protocol and have begun experimenting and trying to retrain demons. Not restrain! Retrain. I am shocked! Shocked and appalled!"

"But-"

"No, don't make any excuses. And I'm not surprised you tried to run to a former opposer of Initiative forces."

Angel looked at Maggie's stunned face. She hadn't known. Hadn't suspected this. This was genuine shock- and fear. She turned pleading eyes to him. "I tried." She mouthed.

Angel yanked the phone from her face to his own. "So what are you going to do about it, huh? You found out she screwed up- which- by the way, how did you find out she screwed up? not that I really give a damn, I'm just kinda curious."

"Like you didn't know. Someone hacked the listserve. And sent a tape. A very incriminating tape of some super humanoid and a vamp- an already chipped vamp."

_Willow. Buffy. Spike._ Angel's shoulders sagged. _Guess Giles was right. They all were. Cordelia, too._ They didn't need him in Sunnydale. Buffy didn't need him after all. Home was- home wasn't gone, he'd never had one. Now he did, because home is where they need you. Home was in LA. "Okay, so you've got big, nasty, evidence splashing around. What are you going to do about it?"

"That's classified." Fremont realized belatedly, even as scared as he was, that he'd let his anger prompt him to speak too loosely.

"Then let me tell you what you're going to do." Angel slammed a fist down into the small wooden table that the phone rested on, making Walsh cringe. "I already worked for you once, and I stopped you then, stopped your nightmare, that you have the nerve to call strategy, that you have nerve to call "scientific' research." Fremont made a protesting noise on the line, but Angel spoke over top of him. "I'm stopping you now. I didn't realize you were the same people at first, but hey, I' m kinda gonna outlive every single one of you. Isn't that funny? You can try this again in ten years, in a hundred years, and I'll probably still be here." He laughed bitterly, a faint hint of madness in his tone. "Hysterical! I'll outlive you- and I'm _dead._"

"You can be killed."

"So can we all. And you're going about it the right way- if that's what you wanted." Angel's voice wasn't humorous now, but deadly, icy. "I'll always take you down. Always stop you. If not me- well- there's plenty of people I know who would take up the job where I left off. But I'm betting they won't need to. See, I've got a personal, a_ very_ personal vendetta now, and the_ smartest_ thing for you to do would be to run screaming into the night after you SHUT. THIS. DOWN." Angel's words rang over the phone, making the air crackle and burst.

"We are. We've got teams there. Now." Fremont trembled. "But we need Walsh."

"You can have her when you close it down."

"We need her to close it down."

Angel seethed. "She's just a scientist. You're a huge operation."

"She's the_ key_ scientist." Fremont disagreed.

"Ohh. I get it. She's the scapegoat, isn't she? She's the one you'll blame when in reality she was only doing what you-"

"There's not enough hard evidence." Fremont panicked, cutting him off before he could incriminate them all further. "We don't have any bodies, everyone in the study- which was wrong- is at least alive, and they did volunteer."

"Not everyone volunteered." Angel murmured darkly. But that wouldn't matter. And Buffy couldn't be dragged into this deeper, not without exposing her to more danger. But maybe there was something else he could find- because he knew these guys. They didn't stop making the omelette- no matter how many eggs the broke.

Angel looked at Maggie, and lightly traced the gruesome mangled ball that had once been a skillful hand. She winced. "No bodies? Huh, Mags? None?"

_Adam. Not Adam. Never Adam, her brainchild._ "None."

"Not- even -one?" Angel's fingers pressed harder, harder, harder on her hand, and then -snap! Walsh screamed and Fremont shouted a warning.

"Three fourteen!" A broken, whimpering wail.

"Thee hundred fourteen bodies?" Fremont sounded appalled. That really _was_ unacceptable.

"No! No- just- just find the lab. Lab three fourteen. Secret." Maggie panted painfully, trying to withdraw her hand, but he had it pinned to the table with his own.

"Where do they find it? How?" Angel shook her.

"Finn. Agent Riley Finn. Squad leader and TA. He- has my office keys. Campus office. He'll- find it." Maggie pressed herself far into the chair as she could go. She was going to die. She was going to die, here, in this hellhole, this prison for demon scum. Fear finally won over completely. Even after she'd done what he'd ordered- they wouldn't play ball. "You can't keep me here. You can't keep me here, I cooperated!"

"We need her alive to testify at a court martial." Fremont joined in the panicked yelling.

Angel paused. "She'll call. Every day. At noon. When you tell her you're shutting it down- and don't lie, or I'll double the body count- by adding your body- then I'll give her to you. Deal?"

"It isn't in my authority to offer a -" A terrified scream and a vampiric roar split the air. "It's a deal! It's a deal, it's a deal!"

"Good. Have a nice evening. And Fremont? Get some sleep. It's late out there." Angel smiled wickedly and hung up the phone.

* * *

><p>"So- you disturbed me at this hour of the night to ask if I think Buffy and Spike have killed your precious professor? The answer is no. For the tenth time. No." Giles said firmly.<p>

"She didn't know this was coming. She had to have been taken, she wouldn't have run. She had no reason to run, not if she didn't know, and no one but me could have tipped her off. Someone - with a grudge- had to have orchestrated her disappearance." Riley insisted, still pacing.

"Yes, did you ever consider it might be any one of the other hundred or so test subjects? Or, rather, their_ families_?" Giles glared.

"Well-" Riley blushed, then shook his head vehemently. "No. Walsh had military training. Access to weapons. Someone powerful- superhuman powerful, demon powerful, would have had to ambush her. Take her and stash her somewhere. She's been missing for more than a day, officially. Longer than that, maybe. Unofficially." He paused and let out a shaky breath. "Okay- so do you know? Really know that they wouldn't have? What about Willow? Or any of them? You?"

Giles rolled his eyes. "You forget. We aren't dealing with vengeance. We're dealing with justice. The greater good. Shutting down your mess, not removing the head from it." He suddenly got a nervous stillness in his semi-reclining frame. "Oh."

"Oh?_ Oh_? Oh, what?"

"Well- there is someone. Who was in town recently. He- was affected by this. And he- he wasn't exactly...thinking clearly."

"Just tell me _what_ he was thinking, unclear or not." Riley demanded.

"I imagine he's thinking only one thought. Not necessarily vengeance. But _avenging._ Yes, avenging. He wants to stop the Initiative. He would certainly consider holding Walsh helpful to that end."

"It's not! They're going to need a body, or a testimony, to shut this down fully, closed, done, ended. Without her corroboration- it's one mad scientist, not proof that the Initiative is actually taking things to a whole new level. Whether it's just her, or whether it's everyone- Walsh has to be delivered."

Giles looked at him pityingly. "Dead or alive, hmm? Yes... I'm sure he can manage that."

Riley stared. "Is that all you're going to say?"

Giles thought of all he'd witnessed in the last few days, the pain, the fear, the emotional turmoil affecting everyone he could think of, Buffy, Joyce, Willow, Xander- more. They were all trapped in hiding, in lying, in waiting. His only family, such as it was, attacked and hunted. Helpless. Frightened. Worrying unceasingly. _And_ he was about to become the only Watcher in history to have his Slayer wed to a vampire. Was he going to try to intervene on the behalf of the woman who'd caused all of it?

"No, Riley." Giles gently took his elbow. "We'll help you if you're in danger. But Walsh has made her choices. You've made yours. We've made ours. So, " he nodded once, showing him to the door, " I think I'll say- goodnight."

"But-"

"Goodnight." Giles repeated softly, and closed the door.

_To be continued..._


	21. Chapter 21

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Note: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Author's Second Note: I'm back, my dears. Thank you for waiting so patiently, I finished Unmentionable and have had a little struggle jumping back into this complex storyline. You might need a refresher as well, so I suggest some rereading is in order! I'm sorry this chapter is so short, and not very Spuffy-esque, but I know some of you were anxious for an update fix and I need to move the plot along here. Hot steamy stuff next chapter, I promise. _

_Dedicated to DLillith21, ginar369, Lil-Leti, Vera Snape-Evans, Ero-Neko- Hime, MMWillow, Sweet-T3, trashyfiction, Fanficfemale, McPastey, Searching-for-my-Reason, Lithium Reaper, Spikeluv4, brittanyr1221, Inazea, suchagleekx, RagnarBlackmane,Little Missy123 _

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part XXI

"Colonel Andrews speaking."

"Andrews, it's Fremont." The heavy eyed, heavy jowled general spoke into the phone with one hand and pulled up a schematic on his computer with the other.

"Ah, yes, Sir."

"You managed to get there, get into the base?"

"Yes, Sir. You'll be pleased to hear the base is undergoing thermal cleaning in three hours, Sir, at three AM Pacific time."

"Cancel that!" Fremont paled.

"But-"

"Cancel that, Andrews!"

"Yes, Sir." A pause. "May I ask why, Sir? It will be a contained cleaning. No personnel will be harmed."

"I have new orders for you. Find Finn. I assume he's there?"

Andrews hesitated. "I told him to go rest, Sir. He took another patrol on his own last night in spite of that, and he checked in at dawn. I think he's asleep, finally, maybe for the first time in days. He's been running the operation in Walsh's absence."

"Andrews, you're not there to play nanny!"

"With due respect, Sir, I was just trying to provide some command relief to another soldier. Finn is the one with the most information, and as I said, running all operations here in Walsh's absence. He's too valuable to lose due to physical failures."

Fremont's voice softened slightly. "I've read his file. He's a good man, and Billings will want him, I'm sure."

"I'm sure. But he's young, and he's close to snapping." Andrews' voice lowered. "Without Walsh, General, most of these boys are off their meds. She was slipping in different doses to each, and Finn was one of the highest. He's crashing, Sir."

"Damn." Fremont hissed heatedly for two reasons. One, now that little piece of information- not unknown, just unmentioned- was on his tapped line, and two, every minute lost before getting the hard evidence Walsh mentioned was another minute his ass was heading towards the sling. The sling at Leavenworth. "Well, give him another few minutes and then get him up, he can rest as soon as he helps with this missing piece. Get him and give him this order. Tell him to find Walsh's office and lab keys, she says he has them or he knows where they are or something. We need access to lab 314."

"Yes, Sir, I'll convey that, Sir." Andrews tilted his head into his military issued phone, a look of concern on his face. "General- there _isn't_ a lab 314."

"I know." Fremont said heavily as he peered at his computer screen. According to the government that lab didn't even exist. Walsh was given a lot of unspecified funding that no one had really questioned, because after all, how do you itemize what you do with secret, uncharted demonic experiments no one has ever heard of before? Fremont had a terrible realization that some of that money had started a whole new leg of the experiment, one he wasn't fully aware of the extent of, complete with new facilities. He grunted out a harsh reply, frustrated. "Somehow Walsh kept a lot more secrets than we ever knew about. But she says there's one down there. She says the key is on the rings that Finn had access to."

"You talked to her?"

"Today. Confidentially, Andrews," _As confidentially as a man with a monitored line can ever hope to speak_, "she's in no position to lie."

"Where is she? Is she in the area of the Initiative base? These boys have been covering the turf here for days, very thoroughly."

Fremont swallowed and turned away from his computer, eyes red rimmed from alcohol, stress, and lack of sleep. "Let's just say she won't be standing her court martial until we find that goddamned lab, no matter where she is."

* * *

><p>"Is this thing really real?" Joyce winced and held out a book to Buffy and Spike.<p>

"Never seen it before, but I didn't think things like m'self existed either." Spike shrugged at some lugubrious, slime covered troll in an old woodcut.

"Yes, those exist." Giles said with quiet authority, and passed another book to Joyce. "You know some French, don't you?"

"A little." Joyce took the book and marveled at the sight around her. The three teens she'd thought of as your typical, fun-loving youths who hung out at clubs and malls and avoided the real world were all pouring over ancient dusty volumes, grave and earnest, the only concession to frivolity being the heaping paper plate full of doughnuts in the center of Mr. Giles' coffee table.

"Well, Willow and Joyce, you take these three then. Plagues and mystical ailments." He handed out three books in French. "Spike- take the Latin with me."

"Right." Spike reached across Buffy and took another volume with a sigh.

"I'll handle Greek, German, and Sumerian, Buffy and Xander you take English. Anya, could you-"

"Take obscure demonic tongues? Some, but I'm rusty." She gave an uncomfortable twist in her shoulders and pouted. "I'll be glad when Spike gets his memory back. I bet he knows some demon languages."

"Well, gimme a book an' I'll see. That's knowledge, not memory. I mean- I can read this flamin' Latin misery. Just know it." He held out his hand to Anya who passed him a book with a grateful smile.

"But- _all_ these references are references to plagues." Joyce scanned the first few pages, feeling quite lost.

"I know." Buffy sounded less lost and more petulant. "Giles, ninety percent of all these plague-y things are plagues of death! Plague _usually_ comes with death, right?"

"I realize that's the case very often, which is why I suggested a reference to the number seven or silence would be more helpful." He smiled through gritted teeth.

"They need to take seven." Xander muttered. "Willow- can you cross reference theft with this stuff somehow?"

"If I had some kind of a database. I'm so going to make one of those..." She trailed off.

"Take seven? Take seven what?" Joyce asked.

"We don't know. It was in a dream. I get vision-filled dreams along with the freaky mutant strength and the early expiration date." Buffy mumbled bitterly. "Seriously cryptic, Giles. Can we put some sort of a work order for dreams that come with an owner's manual?"

"You can see the future?" Joyce gaped at her daughter.

"No! No, Slayers have been able to receive prophetic dreams on occasion. Only infrequently. We're fortunate we got this one at this juncture. Possibly the forces for good decided we had quite enough to cope with and a helpful hint would be nice." Giles brushed his rapidly graying hair out of his eyes and sighed heavily. "I need tea."

"Oh, tea would be wonderful." Joyce sounded inordinately relieved by the thought. Tea was familiar. Slaying related research was not. Seeing these youngsters, her daughter, _Spike_, acting the part of the devoted husband-to-be, Giles in command- all of that was completely out of her depth. She had new sympathy for Buffy._ She loses her world in some freak attack. I try to walk in in the 'safe' part of her life for just an hour and I already feel like I'm in the deep end of the ocean and can't swim._ She rose and hurried after Giles into the small kitchen.

"Is anyone else weirded out by the fact that Buffy's mom is here?" Xander hissed, looking between Buffy and Willow.

"Yes!" Willow hissed back.

"Should I be?" Buffy answered.

"No. Sorta." Willow shrugged. "I guess not actually. She's certainly gotten attacked by enough stuff to start helping look for it."

"Yeah. Zombie voodoo masks, vampires, some Hansel and Gretel demon..." Xander ticked off.

"Hansel and Gretel? That's a fairytale." Buffy looked surprised.

"Yes, but then again, so is Santa Claus, but he's real." Anya said complacently.

"He is? I _knew_ it!" Xander cheered and Spike chortled. Anya frowned.

"Well- he's one of the few survivors of race of polar demons who possesses dimensional shifting capabilities on one night per year. He has to eat a lot in a hurry since he can only feed that night. So technically- the myth of him going down chimneys is right. But he eats the kids, not milk and cookies."

The room fell silent. Xander looked green. "I am moving to Baja and living in a hut where chimneys have never been heard of." He declared hoarsely.

"Are all these fairy tale critters real then?" Spike asked, shutting a book with a fed up expression and reaching around his wife-to-be for another one.

"Plenty I guess. Mermaids are based on water nymphs. The headless horseman was one of my best efforts. Stupid philandering school teachers, flirting with their female pupils..." Anya crossed her arms and glared. The room turned to silence again. "What? It was in the 1700s, come on!"

"Have I mentioned I find fidelity damn sexy?" Spike eyed the former demon with an extra twinkle in his eye and leaned his head to Buffy's.

"Oooh, I second that. It's sizzling on the faithfulness front." Xander chimed in and hugged Anya around the waist.

"Giiiiles! I need tea, too!" Willow called suddenly, unable to bear the cuddliness at the moment, her hands clasped to her head.

"Just coming, dear." Giles and Joyce bustled out, cups for all. "What's the matter, Willow? You usually quite enjoy this part of the hunt."

"I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't just heard about Hans Christian Demonson and the fact that fairytales are full of evil-y badness."

"Oh, Willow. That's a few isolated cases." Giles patted her shoulder and handed her a cup. He frowned slightly. Something nagged in the back of his mind.

"It'd help if we knew seven whats." Buffy repeated for the fifth time that hour.

"Keep looking." Giles felt the thought slip away, and he sat.

* * *

><p>"Sit down, Son. You look exhausted, and this is a very trying time, I know that." Andrews dragged Riley from his sleep, and had the courtesy- or singleness of purpose, not to ask why the boy had been out half the night.<p>

"Yes, Sir." Riley sat.

"Do you have Dr. Walsh's keys, Agent Finn?"

"No, Sir." Riley's head jerked up. _Great._ _I'm a suspect._

"Hm. Would you have access to them? To keys that she had in her office at the campus, or at the base?"

"Well- I know where she kept them." He said slowly. "I don't have her keys, Sir."

"Finn, listen to me." Andrews sat across from him, eyes locked. "This has to be kept a secret. Walsh is alive and she contacted my superior officer."

Riley's heart leapt._ Buffy didn't kill her! Oh, yeah, and Walsh is okay! Thank God. Thank God I didn't get her killed..._

"But that situation is tenuous."

_Spoke to soon._ "Tenuous. As in she isn't safe, Sir?"

Andrews felt it was unsafe to divulge more, and he'd been speculating quite a bit himself as it was. "As in she gave us a message. She said you would have her keys. You could find us this lab."

"Which lab, Sir?" Riley stood eagerly. "I know every lab, Colonel, we can-"

"She said lab 314."

"But-" Riley's face clouded. "314? I never-"

"No, neither did General Fremont. And he's the head of the head of the head, Son." Andrews rose and clapped him on the shoulder. "Dr. Walsh has been keeping a lot of things secret, and this 324 place is one of them." He paused and let out a short, harsh snort before stepping back. "They tell me your squad has the highest kill count, the quickest tracking and tagging times."

"Yes, Sir."

"You know how to think like what you're hunting, Son?"

Riley paused. No. Honestly, he just knew how to use the tools at his disposal, follow the trail, run down the leads. He just didn't mind the hard work, the grunt work, when it came with the glory. That and he had his personal standards for a job well done, meaning he didn't like to quit without a success under his belt. He had a mission. Bring in the deadly things before they kill innocent people. Keep humans at the top of the food chain.

"Finn? You know how to track, you've got an excellent know how to get inside someone's head." _Get inside Walsh's._ That was no easy task. He'd read her file on the flight over. The perfect scientist, the perfect agent. Ruthless, thorough, dedicated, nothing except this job and this work in her life. She should have been the easiest one to monitor, so single-faceted. Then getting here and finding that she had turned this career into a secret, dangerous obsession shook him, screwed up the game.

"Walsh isn't a demon, Sir." Riley finally answered, choking a little. He saw Buffy's blank stare, that unknowing stare that had rapidly become a disliking stare. Recalling only a few days before the failed capture, that girl had been laughing up at him, all sparkling green eyes and big perky smile... Riley swallowed. _Not your average demon, anyway._

"I know, Son, but the same rules apply. You gotta think like her now. Where would that place be? What keys does she mean?"

_Think like her. Get inside that head?_ What did he know about her anyway? Riley had never dreamed she could have something so twisted under her already secret front. A secret plan inside a secret plan. Layers. D_emons were easier, demons were animals, you kill them and you-_

Spike's profile flashed unbidden into his mind, that first time he'd ever seen him with Buffy, as he watched them, standing hidden outside Mr. Giles' window. Hands on her cheeks, voice soft, comforting. A man in love, a worried man. Words from that day's tortured conversation haunted him as well. Or was it another conversation he had after, maybe one he had with himself? They were all torturous now.

_All demons have something they love. A mate at least. Or there'd be no little demons._ Willow had probably said that line, Riley felt a trace of a smile flicker to his face before it froze into a hard look of concentration again. _Walsh never loved anything but her work. Her crazy, psycho work. Keeping secrets inside her head, and -_

Andrews almost fell over as Finn bolted to the door. "I have an idea!"

"Thank God, at least something is going the way it's supposed to around here." Andrews followed him out with a relieved sigh.

* * *

><p>"It's just an idea, but you said to think like her." Riley unlocked Walsh's office in the faculty wing.<p>

"She seemed to think you'd be the best one to help us, help her, Soldier."

"Yeah, well, maybe because she saw me the most." Riley mumbled bitterly. "Uh. Sir." He tagged on at the end, realizing superiors didn't usually waive formality unless there was a hail of bullets. Andrews, however, seemed to be more worried about his progress than his protocols, so Finn resumed his scanning of the room.

"Tell me where to look, Finn. This is a national priority and I don't mind getting my hands dirty just now." _Hands are already dirty. Glad I'm just the one dealing with on site clean up, Fremont's gonna be in the shit house..._

"Walsh loved her work. Just her work and she's been getting into it, Sir. Keeping secrets?" _All kinds of secrets, but I'm just supposed to know about this lab, I'm not supposed to ask why the operation is suddenly being shut down. And if I don't want to be under surveillance for the rest of my life, I'm going to shut up and play dumb about everything I really know._

"She did seem to be focused on this project to the exclusion of everything else." Andrews watched Riley dig through the professor's desk, and then in her briefcase which she'd left behind apparently.

"Right. Sir." He caught himself again, and paused, turning slowly around the room. "Where else would she hide something important to her work- but in her work? If she wanted to hide a lab in plain sight, she'd hide it in the labs..." Riley slowly walked to the filing cabinet, still talking, but not out loud,_ If she wanted to hide tortures under tortures..._

Andrews caught on and nodded, murmuring to himself, "Hiding mind games in mind games." Finn gave him a startled look and he made his face return to passive curiosity. _Woman was a psychiatrist, she was dabbling in mind control, reprogramming, recreating a psyche she'd blow up first. 'Course she'd hide it in her cover story of psychology professor. Bitch probably thought it was amusing._

Riley pulled out the drawers one at a time, looking for something, something that would strike him as out of place. Like the idea of Walsh loving anything more than her job, being willing to sacrifice it for some secret in a lab. Out of place, like a vampire who had managed to convince his demon to fall in love. Stranger than the prettiest girl in the world falling in love with a monster...

"What are we looking for, Finn?" Andrews was pulling files open and peering into the beige folders methodically.

"I don't know, Sir. I wish she had told me something that would help." Riley replied grimly, doing the same as his superior.

"She must have a lot of faith in you, boy. Asked for you by name." He tried to bolster the younger man who wore an increasingly frustrated expression. "And it's not your fault, Finn."

"Finn. Finn?" Riley's eyes suddenly focused on one neatly printed folder tab and narrowed. "These are student files. Her campus cover up." He muttered and yanked out a file bearing his name. "Sir, I'm _not_ her student." His grave look turned pleased.

"What the-?"

Riley held up a small envelope and shook it out into his palm. Two keys and a plain white electronic key card fell out. "Jackpot, Sir."

"Hot damn." Andrews sighed in relief. "Search and recovery phase one complete."

* * *

><p>"I've no idea. I've looked through every resource and nothing is conclusive. Willow, where is that list?" Giles sounded peevish.<p>

"Here." Willow limply held out a rumpled piece of paper, much scratched out and rewritten upon. "We know it's not any of the crossed out things. Yay for cross-referencing!"

"Did she get hit on the head as well?" Spike muttered to Anya as he stared in amazement at the academic preferences of the red head.

"She's just odd." Anya whispered loudly. Buffy nudged Spike hard and Xander did the same to his partner. Anya and Spike exchanged impish looks, while their better halves exchanged ones of long-suffering.

"I am not! Except for being - weird and geeky." Willow mumbled.

"And we love that! Totally love that!" Buffy felt a surge of real emotion coming back, defensive, protective- something she hadn't felt for anyone truly but Spike. _This must be why I do what I do. Protecting. Helping. It feels... right. Like it fits. Spike fits, too. It's all going to fit. If we can ever solve this stupid soldier crisis and the stupid impending death crisis, that is._

"How often do you do this?" Joyce put a book down and rose painfully, rubbing the crick in her neck.

"Every time some big nasty is a-comin'." Xander said. "So, what's that? Every couple weeks?"

"More often in the spring." Willow nodded.

"And we sleep in shifts. Spent a lot of time in the library. Our high school library, but we were the only ones to ever use that place. Before it blew up." Buffy said slowly, almost to herself. Her friends were silent.

"That's right." Giles said, heart lifting. Suddenly, research didn't seem so difficult anymore. The tiredness abated. His Buffy, a new woman now, but still somehow his girl was coming back to the surface. He could go for hours with the grace of that single thought. But it was getting dark, and bad things usually struck in the dark... "That's right. You remembered."

"Well done, Poppet." Spike kissed her cheek and rose as well. He wished his memories were being triggered, but how could they be? He'd never had these moments, and she had._ Doesn't matter. Don't need the familiar. Just need her._

"Yeah. Cool." Buffy smiled.

"Better than cool." Xander beamed. "Wow. My research batteries just recharged. Giles! Damn the paper cuts, full speed ahead!"

Giles gasped, "Don't you dare bleed on these books, they're irreplaceable!"

"What about his fingers?" Anya demanded out of loyalty. "He can't replace those either."

Joyce laughed and Spike looked around wide eyed. "Do seem to remember thinking it was a miracle you lot ever beat me." He chuckled softly.

"_Always_ beat you." Buffy corrected playfully.

"We beat all the bads. Sometimes in a more icky way than others, but..." Willow picked up another book, "we keep on trying."

"No more tonight." Giles took it from her. "It's getting dark, and you all need to get home. I don't know where this thing is coming from, or when it will arrive, but it will be more likely to arrive after nightfall."

* * *

><p>"That was Cpt. Amanda Hernandez on the horn." Andrews, Finn, and his crack team were heading into the bowels of the Initiative once more.<p>

"Which branch, Sir?" Finn asked, leading the way through the labyrinth like tunnels, looking for the right place, some secret lab in a lab.

"The branch you don't want around here. But they're coming. They'll hit town before dark, plan to bunk in your barracks." He answered grimly. "Bunch of glorified janitors- think they can clean up problems only the Pentagon is equipped to handle." He quickened his pace. _They want Walsh to testify. We need Walsh to testify. Dammit, we just need Walsh or this won't get off the ground. And to get Walsh we gotta find this godforsaken hole in a hole..._

Riley balked at a steel door. "Restricted access, Sir. I don't have-"

"I do." Andrews swiped a card and the door slid back. He paused and punched in an override code which allowed the rest of the commandos beside him to enter the area. "Why is this restricted? There's nothing here."

"Uh- not yet, Colonel." A man smiling ingratiatingly came around the sterile room's partition in blue scrubs. "This will be the research room for the HSTs who've been given a neuro taser treatment." He pointed to a complex looking monitor. "Brain scans for the humanoid types. Now we've been working on-"

"Who the hell are you and where the hell have you been?" Andrews thundered.

The man lost his smile. "I'm Dr. Angleman, I'm the head cryptozoologist." He answered frostily. "And I've been in a dissection of a bi-cephaloidal HST for the last several hours, thank you."

"Dr. Angleman- we got the order to stop all activity hours ago." Riley hissed.

"I report only to Dr. Margaret Walsh, who-"

"Who is_ missing_." Andrews took him by the arm and escorted him along. "You were to report to Finn, and now you report to me, Colonel Andrews, Pentagon Attachment. You're not too well informed about the day to day runnings of this place, Angleman. Maybe you should come out of this pit once in awhile." Andrews regarded the sterile lab that led to steel morgue-like storage containers along the wall. "But in spite of that, I bet you have one little piece of information that we need."

"Maggie's missing?" Angleman looked genuinely startled. "Since when? Where is she? What day is it?" I_nhaling too much formaldehyde again. Or maybe that purple goo in the second brain sac has some unknown side effects._

"Not now, man." Gates, jumpy after endless shifts of fruitless searching and craving action, was reckless enough to speak out of turn. "We need to search this place, on the double."

"For what?" Angleman looked panicked suddenly.

"Lab 314." Andrews informed him with a look that warned he'd had just about enough of the hoops he'd been jumping through today.

"We don't have a lab 314!" He cried in protest, genuinely puzzled.

"Walsh swears on her life you do." Andrews exaggerated slightly- or maybe not so much.

"This is the only restricted area, Sir! This is the new project and development lab, and then the prototype lab and the preservation room are right through that door. If you access to one you have access to all." Angleman paled. "You're not collecting the neuro taser prototypes are you? And what about all the demon parts we've preserved?"

Riley felt the scanty supply of snacks he'd been living on lately try to reemerge. _They keep the parts? Angleman _cares_ if they keep the parts? This isn't supposed to be like the natural history museum, we don't want to keep the bodies, we want to exterminate a threat! This is putting evil on ice so you can look at it later. God, I didn't know how sick these people were..._

"We're collecting everything, and we're doing a thermal cleaning. Surgical strike, of course." He smiled reassuringly with patience he didn't feel.

Thermal cleaning? The team exchanged a look but remained silent. They'd long ago learned to keep silent. Finally, cool in a crisis Graham spoke softly. "Yes, Sir. Doctor, where should we start looking? Dr. Walsh said lab 314. Maybe she meant specimen 314 in this restricted lab. Possibly, Sir." He nodded to Andrews who smiled.

"Like the way you think." Andrews rubbed his hands. "Take this place apart, boys, but do it damn carefully. I know you've been trained in sensitive materials handling."

Angleman let out an agonized, completely unmanly wail. "No! My collection!"

"Get a hold of yourself, man!" Andrews told him sternly. "Walsh had something important in here and we're going to find it!"

"She didn't have anything more than this! I've known Margaret Walsh for three years, worked with her in Washington before we were shipped here! Her job is her life, and I'm the closest thing she has to family! She would have told me if she would have told anyone!"

"She didn't say you. She said Finn." Andrews nodded at Riley.

Angleman seemed to deflate at those words, shoulders sagged inch by inch. "Finn?" He repeated slowly. A twisted, bitter smile creased his face. "Figures. Dominant, superiorly intellectual female. She looked for the brawn, not the brain."

"Take that back!" Riley lost his cool, perilously close to snapping all day, and now it broke. "She loved this job, and she respected me for being her TA and the best squad leader we have!"

"Phhh, grow up, pretty boy." Angleman didn't care if he was about to be embroiled in a court martial or in trouble for insubordination. His collection and his work was about to get manhandled and Maggie, cold, cruel, ice queen Maggie, had turned to some twenty year old with big muscles to keep her secrets instead of him, her intellectual equal, her research partner of three years. "She didn't respect anyone but herself. She didn't love anyone either, but she might have wanted you to lo-"

"That's enough!" Andrews snarled and glared. _Damn it, he'd been right. The boy's meds were wearing off._ Finn looked shaky in the florescent lights and Angleman looked like the sneer he wore would never come off his face."She asked for Finn, now deal with it, or your precious professor is going to DIE!"

Silence reigned. With shuffling nods, the group dispersed, carefully setting items out, replacing them, searching for something incriminating, something severe enough to bring all of this to a halt. And no one- save Finn and Andrews, though neither knew the extent of the other's knowledge- even knew what the cause of the uproar had been.

"There isn't a lab 314." Angleman said after ten tense minutes of silent tear down. "Look, Colonel Andrews, this is lab 313. It's as restricted as we get. Only Maggie and I had clearance codes. There's nothing after this but miles of dirt."

"I know. I saw the schematic." Andrews nodded, wincing at the putrid demonic arm he had just found in one of the steel drawers.

"There has to be something, though." Riley spoke up. "We walked through an airlock from the main lab to the restricted labs. When that door seals, you'd be cut off from any air unless there's ventilation someplace."

As one the group began scanning walls and ceilings instead of the drawers and files.

"There is is!" Gates pointed to a large white slated vent on the far back wall to the right.

"Yeah, right here by the refrigeration unit." Graham agreed. Realizing what had been said, they stared and then looked at their superiors. "Doesn't seem likely there'd be two, does it, Sir?"

Andrews was ahead of them, ripping the unit away from the wall to reveal a slim white card reader and push pad. "Sneaky bitch." He mumbled under his breath. The space between the wall and the unit would have been just enough for her to run her hand along, she'd never have to pull the cold storage forward in order to swipe her card. But he did. He slid her retrieved card and pushed in Walsh's code. Nothing. "She must have used another code. This lab isn't supposed to exist, I suppose it only makes sense that her access code isn't on file either. Hang on, men." He tapped in his override code and waited. Nothing. He used his own access card, and tried again, and again with mounting frustration. "Dammit!" He finally cursed heatedly.

"That's been here the whole time?" Angleman looked poleaxed. "How have I- how could she-"

"Mama Bird was busy." Gates let out a long, low whistle.

"This card and my code override any government base clearance!"

"Not if she encrypted it herself." Angleman said in a sulky tone. "She could have, you know. She and I worked with the team that designed this place, back in Washington, two years ago when the HST activity became more pronounced. We had to go to the trainings on security programming. Maggie always took good notes... she loved her research." He sighed fondly.

"Uh, yeah. Lady was getting a little too close to her research." One of Andrews' normally silent, black suited figures felt compelled to speak.

"What do you know? She wasn't close to anyone! This job was her life, everything to her, she didn't even make time for a- a relationship- and you demi-gods from Washington march in and think you know my Maggie!" Angleman had another outburst, this one clearly more personal.

"If she wasn't close to anyone, why was her call sign 'Mother'?" Andrews stopped glaring at the scanner and turned slowly, looking at all the young men who had apparently jumped at Walsh's every word.

"Oh, you know. Mama Bird. Mother. The- uh- the parent operation." Gates reasoned, not sounding so certain as he finished his thought.

Andrews had one of his flashes of insight that had made him shoot through the ranks so fast, promoted to this elite position in record time. "Finn! Punch in your clearance code!" _She didn't want Angleman. But her job isn't the only thing she cared for. Woman had wants. Finn, by the looks of it, but not as a lover. No, Mama Bird had a favorite little chick in the nest._ "Finn, we're burnin' daylight!" He motioned him forward.

"Mine? Sir, I swear, I don't have-"

"Do it!" Andrews swiped the card and Riley entered his own code.

"Voice recognition required." Walsh's pre-recorded voice spoke to them and made them all jump slightly. Andrews nudged Riley along.

"Um." He cleared his throat. "Agent Riley Finn."

"Please state the password."

Riley paused looked at his friends and his fellow soldiers. He shrugged. Andrews shrugged. "Get inside her head, Son." Andrews mouthed, tapping his own.

Finn nodded, trying to think like her. _Why'd she pick me? Huh? Why me of all people, didn't she know I'd just let her down, betray her? Only I had to, she was destroying herself... After all she's done for me, taken me as the TA, made sure I stayed on the top of the heap, counted on me, treated me like a-_

Riley had to swallow a couple of times before he spoke. He only hoped this thing didn't gas you if the voice recognition software didn't like what you said. Like that time Leland caught strep and lost his voice or the time Freidline got drunk and said the password word was "Bud light, Baby" instead of "Election of 1834."

_Here goes nothing._ "Mother." Riley winced and waited.

A seam appeared behind the steel refrigeration unit and a narrow doorway appeared as a section of wall slid back, leading to another sterile looking laboratory.

Walsh's prerecorded voice echoed in the still room. "Access granted."

_To be continued..._


	22. Chapter 22

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Note: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Author's Second Note: I'm back, my dears. Thank you for waiting so patiently, I finished Unmentionable and have had a little struggle jumping back into this complex storyline. You might need a refresher as well, so I suggest some rereading is in order! _

_Dedicated to DLillith21, ginar369, Lil-Leti, Lynbie, Ero-Neko- Hime, MMWillow, Sweet-T3, trashyfiction, McPastey, Waddiwasiwitch,omslagspapper, cavemenftw, medusamylove, Spikeluv4, brittanyr1221, Inazea, suchagleekx, RagnarBlackmane, Lithium Reaper, Little Missy123 _

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part XXII

"There's nothing in here." Andrews sounded like he could bite through the gun he had drawn upon entering 314.

"Nothin' weirder than the usual weird." Gates muttered, looking at the bare operating table and gurneys, medical equipment lined up and hung in glass fronted cabinets, and another row of cold storage drawers as used in morgues.

"This wasn't on the schematic. This wasn't even on the damn blueprint!" Andrews waved his arms about in frustration. "Why the hell would she need another little lab when this place must already have thirty of the damned things!"

"Eleven." Angleman muttered mulishly.

"Who let the labcoat in?" Andrews groaned.

"Not me." One of his men replied.

"Well, get him out. Get him out and get him upstairs and have him wait 'til I can debrief him, 'cause he isn't helping down here." The operative Andrews addressed nodded and took Angleman by the elbow.

"Not helping, huh?" Angleman twisted free. "Colonel, I may not have your military background, but I am a scientist. And even I can see something is wrong with this picture."

"Your superior misappropriating funds to create an unauthorized laboratory?" Andrews said sharply.

"These drawers." Angleman pointed to the silver slabs imbedded in the walls. "Spatially impossible."

Riley yanked on one of the drawers' handles. It didn't open. "He's right. Dummies."

"They feed into the other drawers on the other side of the wall." One of Andrews' team realized.

"We opened the drawers over there!"

"Not all of them, we found the second ventilator panel and turned our attention over here." Finn pointed out. "Gates, take a few of the guys and go open the drawers over there, we'll take the drawers over here." He realized Andrews and everyone else was looking at him. "Oh. With your permission, Sir?"

"Go to it." Andrews glared briefly. "Just to be clear, Agent, who's wearing the brass around here?"

"You, Sir." Finn swallowed. The teams split and Andrews stepped to his side as they tugged on the steel handles.

"Like the way you think, Boy. Take charge type. Put it to good use." The older man muttered and nodded.

_Sure took charge of making a big mess, but stopping a bigger one._ Outwardly, Riley just nodded quietly and pulled on drawers. The one in the far left corner jiggled but didn't slide forward. "Hey!" He called loudly. "Hey! Gates! Go to the far corner of the room and pull the bottom drawer!"

"Got it!" Forrest shouted back. There was another metallic clanking sound. "Doesn't pull out!"

"Try pushing it in." Graham suggested suddenly.

"Gates! See if you can push it in!"

There was a hissing sound on the other side of the wall and a vacuum lock sound of escaping air on Finn's side.

"Clever. Hidden in plain sight." Andrews' eyes lit up and he stepped up beside the now opening drawer.

"There's a lot of that around here." Finn murmured to himself and released the handle, letting the slab slide free.

There was an immediate chorus of horrified cursing, gasping, and retching. "Oh my God, he's human! He's a human!" Finn heard his own voice, choked and mortified, through the blood rushing through his ears, like the voice was coming from a great distance.

"It was. It used to be, oh my God!" Someone was shouting and then there was a sound of footsteps running away.

"Pull it together! PULL IT TOGETHER! You've seen dead men before!" Andrews thundered. Battle-hardened troops turned into squeamish ROTC boys in this neck of the woods. Of course, what he saw wasn't doing his digestion any good.

"Yeah, but not like _that _!" One of his men said, right before he bolted to the nearest sink.

"Have to agree. What _happened_ to him?" Angleman's voice was soft, curious.

"Some demon? Some- face eating demon?" Andrews asked, shutting the drawer with a wince.

"I don't think so. That body doesn't have any incisor-like marks or stabbing and tearing marks consistent with teeth or other piercing projections consistent with 99% of the flesh eating demons we've tagged in this area." Angleman came back over and yanked open the drawer again, pulling latex gloves from his pocket and snapping them on.

"Don't touch him!" Andrews ordered. "Why did Walsh show us this? Who is this? Finn, you recognize him? Anyone know him?"

Riley clenched his jaw and looked down again. "No. But- he's kinda hard to recognize. You know, with most of his face missing."

The body on the slab was impressive for two reasons. One was the sheer size of the man, the naked body was partially concealed by a white sheet, but the shoulders, the torso, the neck, and what was left of the head- massive and muscular. The second thing was the massive injury that had removed half of his head, seeming to leave it like an eggshell full of red pulped tissue, the front of his skull and majority of the face simply no longer in existence.

"This all looks like it only happened within a few days." Andrews said grimly. He had seen an unfortunate number of corpses in his line of duty, and this one, with the bluish purple bruising around the neck and shoulders, the off white pallor, and the fresh redness of the facial wounds indicated a recent attack. "But this base hasn't reported any fatalities in weeks, and Walsh has been missing for two days, maybe more. We're still trying to retrace her movements after her last check in. This guy has to be more recently deceased than that."

"Uh. Not necessarily." Angleman was fairly itching to examine the body, but kept his hands in check. "You see, we didn't know the rates of demonic tissue composition, and with the preservation collection for all the formerly uncharted species of HSTs-"

"Oh, cut to the chase, doctor!"

"This guy could have died up to a year ago." Angleman blurted.

"A year?"

"A year!"

"How?"

"New preservation technology!" Angleman squeaked under the sudden outcry.

"But- but- never mind the when for now, what the hell destroyed him? This doesn't even look like a shotgun blast, it looks like-"

"Something caused his brain to blow straight through the back of his head with enough force to liquefy most of his face and his skull?" Riley suggested.

"Grenade to the head'd just take the whole body to bits. What could possibly create something that burst from the inside out?"

"A neuro taser." Finn handed a thin file folder to Andrews. "This was in the chart slot inside the drawer."

Andrews took it and read the front page aloud. "Hearst, Matthew Peter. Corporal, given an entry level research post in a special operative branch- and hacked the data. Convicted and sentenced to seven years- volunteered for military research to get a reduction in sentence length. Assigned to bio-behavioral research with Dr. Walsh's neuro taser study. First test subject."

"That's Maggie's writing." Angleman pointed to the back of the packet he could see over the edge of the folder. Andrews scanned through the report for a second before flipping it over.

"We already knew about the research done in creating the neuro taser, of course." _About two thousand people know about it now, thanks to a hacked listserve... _"Although this man was never listed as a test subject, and his death was never reported. If it had been, the testing probably would have been halted indefinitely."

Not really, thought Riley, but he just nodded. _In reality, they would have just lowered the charge or changed something else and tried it again. I'm all for volunteering to risk your life militarily or medically- but this was just to see if you could erase a life and program in a new one. Maybe I used to think that was a cool idea, a psychological groundbreaker. Now it just seems unnecessary. _"What do Walsh's handwritten notes say about this, Sir?"

Andrews was scanning them, his face turning dark brick red as he did so. He read through twice and then hesitated before thrusting the papers at Finn and storming off. He turned in the doorway and pointed accusingly at Angleman. "You keep the hell away from that body! Swinton!" He hollered to his nearest operative.

"Sir!" Swinton saluted.

"Get in touch with Hernandez's team leader. Find out how far away they are and if handling bodies is in the jurisdiction of the sensitive materials unit or our unit."

"Yes, Sir."

"The rest of you get a guard rotation set up around this body, around this lab, and the lab outside. No one moves that body until I sign off on it. Finn- come with me, bring those papers, and take me to your secured dedicated fax or scanner." Andrews seemed to be returning to normal color at this point, shouting orders seeming to relieve some of the tension.

Riley followed wordlessly, then not really caring if he was fracturing protocol or the chain of command or not, he turned to Gates. "You're in charge of our alpha team. Help these guys and the team that's arriving."

"Yeah. Sure, man." Gates thought about asking to see the paper, but Finn's face, devoid of color and sort of glassy looking convinced him he didn't want to know what it contained.

Riley had stopped reading after the first page of handwritten notes, tucking the papers back into the folder and clutching them under his arm. He was acutely aware however, that even if he never read the page again, it would never be erased from his memory. Even as he doggedly followed Andrews and Swinton, her words were scrolling across his eyes in an infinite loop.

_I chose Hearst from the candidates for the first subject because of his size and high IQ. He obviously shouldn't have been working his way up, he should have been commissioned or put in the special branches at once. In the initial interview he said he was bored simply seeing the research every day and wanted to contribute, so he hacked the database to get the information to work on in his spare time. He liked to push limits. With that attitude and the physical size to withstand the voltage, I thought he would be perfect._

_ I was, of course, disappointed when the voltage seemed too high. The scanning equipment I ran during the test showed the voltage didn't merely traumatize the right side of the cerebellum or the hippocampus, it flooded them with the charge, and instead of merely burning, the tasing effect caused the brain to erupt with enough force to penetrate the skull. There is approximately 28% of the subject's facial and skull structure left. _

_ Adjust taser levels?_

There were series of complex looking formulas and scribbles and then the ink was fresher looking, as if Walsh's work had been interrupted and returned to after months.

_Satisfactory levels achieved in other trials. Begin training teams for neuro taser use in field._

_ Hearst's body still preserved after using the solution created in DC. Phase two can begin as soon as I've perfected him. Need to find a way to completely destroy the cerebellum and hippocampus in all subjects so reprogramming isn't an issue and memory never returns . Must do it without destroying so much of the organic tissue and bone structure. Reconstructive surgery is a waste of valuable time._

Then the sketches with their captions began, detailing each step of creating "Adam", Walsh's prototype for the perfect human- or part human. Strong bodies with high muscle mass, a completely destroyed memory and very little left of the brain but basic biological functions. The rest would be made of cybernetic implants. Thoughts and free will would be eradicated by pre-programed, Walsh-formatted operating systems running through those implants.

At the bottom of the page had been a single ominous line.

_Stage three. Upgrade. Use HST components._

"The squad is arriving now. They say they'll handle the body, transport it to their base as soon as you get all the evidence you need, Sir." Swinton hung up his phone and looked at the Colonel.

"Walsh thought she was God, and she was cocky with it. Only someone with a hell of a lotta vanity and thinking they can never get caught would take notes like that." Andrews nodded curtly, rage simmering within him. What the hell had she been thinking? And concealing Hearst's death as well, and no one even noticing, looking for a prisoner who was supposed to help with research and then simply never came back?Was everyone in the Initiative program so busy chasing after demons they forgot about the humans? Apparently.

"Yes, Sir." Finn answered.

"I'm sorry, Finn, I know you care about her, but-"

"No, Sir." Riley was too disgusted to worry about manners, and cut him off. "I care about the person I thought she was."

Even Angleman, somehow caught in their wake as the exited the anterior lab, seemed moved to comment negatively on his beloved Maggie. "We all thought she was brilliant." He muttered softly as he turned one way, and the rest headed the other. "I _knew_ she was brilliant. I just didn't realize she was so- _insane_."

Riley muttered a response he didn't intend for others to overhear, more of a realization, one of many he'd had lately. Walsh was insane. Brilliant, too. Imagine trying to destroy a whole life, just so you can be in control of a new one. Imagine thinking that's actually _better._ She was so wrong, about so much. "Maybe. Maybe she just didn't understand how you should love."

* * *

><p>"As much as I love trying to use my rusty college level education to read early French scrolls about plagues, we should probably go. Especially if being out after dark is a concern." Joyce said worriedly as the sun began to cast a deep reddish orange haze through the drawn drapes of Giles' living room.<p>

Despite his insistence that they all leave an hour ago, she, Spike, and Buffy had remained. Not entirely out of a noble desire and tirelessness of mother love on a mission on Joyce's part, nor, she suspected, because of a deep sacred duty on Buffy or Spike's part. And Giles- well he lived there, poor man, and he was caught with three people who didn't know what would happen when all three of them went home and spent a night together under one roof. It wouldn't be like last night, when the couple exhaustedly retreated to their room and Joyce fell asleep in a mixture of grieving and relief. They'd have to eat first. A family dinner. A family dinner with a clean slate and almost no past history to use for ice breakers and an amnesiac daughter and a vampire boyfriend. Joyce's tension pallor rivaled Spike's. _Wonderful. A family dinner with almost total strangers wearing my baby's face and her old enemy playing the lovestruck fiancé. I'm grateful not to lose her- but oh my God- what will we talk about for an hour or so over the meal and until bedtime? Don't even think about bedtime. Bed. As in Buffy and that-_

Joyce's internal panic was momentarily halted as she watched Spike take a book from Buffy's hand and their fingertips seemed to linger and their eyes met, like they were locked in their own private world. Joyce smiled slightly. Unlike Angel, she felt like she knew Spike in one aspect. He wasn't a game-player, he was transparent about all his emotions, any of his emotions. Buffy might be in the most awkward predicament of her life- but Spike wasn't letting her go it alone.

"You all did marvelously. I thank you for the extra hour." Giles accepted the scroll from a distracted looking Joyce who seemed transfixed as she watched Spike and Buffy slowly getting to their feet and putting back their books. "You'll be in plenty of time to get home before dark, even now."

"You just always try to put the children out of harm's way, don't you, Rupert?" Joyce asked.

"They refuse to let me." He mumbled despairingly. "You must know how challenging it is to have one so young lead the charge into the fray."

"Yes... It's hard." Joyce watched Spike and Buffy discussing something hurriedly, pointing into the weapons chest, making motions she didn't understand. "Harder than ever now."

"I know." Giles whispered. "But she's in there. The Slayer is in there. She can handle this darkness that's coming, we'll help her. And the Slaying- that is innate. She never lost the ability, even if she lost the memory."

"I see that." Joyce watched her fair haired child and her demon lover with incredulous, pained eyes. "But I'm not worried about having dinner with the Slayer. I'm worried about having a nice family dinner- with my daughter who still doesn't remember me."

Giles knew that pain, intimately well, as well as he could without being her actual father, he supposed. "If there's anything more I can do, Joyce, I-"

"Come for dinner?" Joyce begged suddenly.

"Surely I'd only be in the way?" He was startled.

"She trusts you. More than me." Joyce's lips twitched in a painful smile.

"Oh, really-"

"Please, Rupert."

She was a very proud woman. The request and the admission had to cost her more than he could imagine.

"Can I bring anything?" Giles asked after an uncomfortably emotional pause.

Joyce's face broke into a beaming smile. "An overnight bag. In case this plague thing sets in. You shouldn't be traveling after dark, isn't that what you said?"

* * *

><p>"Short recon patrol after dark. That's all." Part of the sensitive materials team left with black suited precision, five of them worth a platoon on the deadly stealth-o-meter. Riley looked after them with envy in his eyes, now that he'd been dismissed from his role of junior partner to Andrews. Andrews was locked up in conference calls with Washington, the lab was under guard and the squad sent by Hernandez was arranging to move the body. Except for those lucky five and a few more. The few that were going to get to patrol tonight, while the real Initiative soldiers were kept off the streets, now considered more of a hazard than a help, all of them just waiting to be officially reassigned.<p>

"Lucky bastards." Leland muttered to Finn.

"I know." Finn sighed.

"Almost makes you feel sorry for anything they come across tonight, doesn't it?" He asked with a semblance of sadistic glee.

Riley's eyes bugged suddenly. _Oh no. Not again. Not in the wrong place, wrong time, not again. Buffy'd just been in the way before, tagging along with Spike for some reason. What if she's out there tonight, by his side again? What if any of them are, any of that strange bunch she hangs out with? They'd been out before, scouring the woods for their lost friend._

"Yeah. They'll have plenty to hunt. Luckies." He gave a longing glance that almost concealed his mounting panic. "Well. I need to catch up on paperwork. All those finals won't grade themselves, and Walsh's cover's blown to the military, but I might as well try to keep the civilians out of it." If _that _wasn't the God's honest truth. Riley knew he was expected to maintain Initiative protocols in regards to keeping the military presence a secret and that meant grading those papers, getting into his campus cover. He saluted as he passed one of the checkpoints Andrew had posted and headed up to his room calmly, sweating inside.

_I have to warn Willow. She has to warn them. All of them. They need to stay inside tonight. Now- how am I going to do that while every word that goes in or out of this place is being monitored?_

* * *

><p>Willow's stopped her online research as her email made its happy chiming sound. She minimized the page on memory loss, knowing it was fruitless to keep looking for a cure that wasn't there, but too bored and too jumpy to do anything else. She should have gone to her parents' house where it was safer, closer to Buffy's, closer to Xander's, a little closer to Giles'- but all the couple-y goodness was starting to wear on her a little bit. Even Joyce and Giles- not that they were making the happy eyes at each other- were seeming to partner up a little. She could handle that. She really could, but it still made her feel like the odd one out.<p>

"I_ am _odd. I can't blame them for worrying about this crisis when my crisis is so teeny weeny. I mean- heartbreak happens." She hugged her knees and opened her email. "I could erase my memory. I'd forget him. I don't want to forget him. I could move on." Willow wiped her eyes, taking her first self-pity break in days, since the wake of this calamity. She was still in mourning for good things lost, and wondering if she could ever begin to move on. What the heck would she even be looking for, if she moved on? There was only one Oz...

"Shy hacker witch seeks taciturn wolfman with eclectic taste in music and an interest in the occult. _Good_ occult. Yeah. I'm gonna find someone like that..."

Willow ceased her muttering and opened the note from a campus address. "Oh. Goody. Commando mail." She skimmed the four line note.

_Willow, just a reminder that you and anyone else involved in Professor Walsh's pre-finals research case study need to keep your curfew hours. Anyone in your group who is out after dark will be removed from the project and your grade will suffer. That extends to anyone you know participating in your research group! TAs will be out checking to make sure study participants are following these guidelines._

Willow read the letter through three times before she yelped and grabbed the phone. She called Buffy's house first. Joyce answered the phone. Willow blurted.

"Willow! Calm down, speak slowly. Buffy, Giles- get on the extension, Willow sounds very upset!" Joyce placed her hand over the receiver and asked two of her three companions to assist her in deciphering Willow's frantic explanations.

Buffy stood and looked around for a minute before looking helplessly at her mother with a shrug. "Where is it?"

Joyce felt her heart kick itself. "Sorry, honey, take this one, the other's upstairs." joyce passed her daughter the phone and headed to the extension herself. Spike glared at her as she passed, his arm protectively around Buffy's shoulder as she rose. Somehow oddly enough, that didn't bother Joyce much at all. _Good. Keep protecting her. You better. I may not have a fire ax but I've got a broom handle I could stake you with if I had to... _

"You have to stay inside tonight!" Willow cried as soon as she heard Giles voice.

"We'd planned on it." Giles soothed. "Perhaps a quick patrol, but-"

"NO! No, listen to this!" Willow read Riley's email at warp speed and then a little slower, and finally at a speed able to be understood by human ears.

"TAs will be out checking curfews?" Joyce's puzzled voice asked.

"I think he's trying to say that the guys like him- commandos- will be out tonight hunting for people- people like us, not so normal- so we'd better stay in." Willow hissed, pretty sure her line wasn't tapped but still hating to say anything explicitly pointing to the unusual nature of their predicament.

"Good heavens." Giles shook his head and rubbed his brow. "Those fools with weapons? I thought the operation would be under surveillance or investigation or something by now, after all we've done." He cried in exasperated anger. He almost added, "After all Angel's done.", but stopped himself. He was nearly positive the brooding former lover had taken Maggie Walsh prisoner but wasn't about to mention that.

"I know, but- but maybe they are. Maybe they are and so they're all 'gung ho, let's show how good we are at our jobs!' and they're out tonight hunting. Um. Yeah, hunting bad things. Or- or maybe he just meant- hunting us." Willow swallowed nervously. "I need to call Xander and Anya. What if they know- what if they know we're the ones who busted them?"

"Stay there. I'm coming to get you and bring you away from that campus." Giles said grimly.

"No! You stay there,Willow- and you Giles, both of you." Spike spoke for the first time in minutes, completely uncharacteristically quiet previously, listening with growing concern.

"Spike!" Buffy was aghast.

"I got everyone into the mess, I'll get everyone out. If I can."

"If you're going- I'm going." Buffy said staunchly.

"Slayer-"

"Spike!" Her eyes glared daggers at him- and it was a familiar feeling. "You can't go out there! You're definitely not a -"

"-person who should be breaking the rules because you need the good grades!" Willow squeaked frantically. Saying this much was risky, saying "vampire" was just stupid. "I'm fine! We're all fine where we are- as long as we don't go out tonight. For a couple reasons."

Giles assumed the voice of authority as he often did. "Call- the others in your study group. We'll come to you if you need us. But- we should all be safe enough inside. Is there someone in the dorms you could stay with, or have stay with you?"

Willow's eyes widened. _People who weren't normal. Tara. The real witch. The one like her, magical. _The shy girl with the sweet smile. She didn't need to get involved. On the other hand, she didn't need to get caught in the middle, like Buffy had, a human with special powers. Maybe Tara wouldn't be out with a vampire in the thick of Initiative headquarters, but she could be out getting ingredients for a spell and- and suddenly the thought of that sweet smile and those blue eyes that flickered away when she blushed turning into a hazy blank countenance was too much to bear. "I have a friend I just met. She's- like me. I think we'll stick together."

"Meet at my flat tomorrow morning. After this- curfew check- is done." Giles gently replaced the receiver and turned to a grave looking Buffy and Spike.

"Commandos, weird dreams, a really uptight pompous Scrooge-guy running my 'job', _and_ a plague?" Buffy demanded in a furious tone.

"Don't forget the zapper induced amnesia, Pet." Spike threw out.

"What the hell did we do to deserve this?" Buffy groaned.

"One of the joys of being 'Chosen', I'm afraid." Giles tried to smile as Joyce hurried down the stairs, eyes wide and worried. "Well. I'm glad you insisted I bring my overnight bag." He said with false heartiness. "Looks as though there's yet another reason none of us should go anywhere tonight."

A clamor of questions and suggestions broke out between mother and daughter, and Giles tried to speak over or under them- but it was Spike who managed to make himself heard.

He asked in a loud, purposefully penetrating voice, "What's for dinner, Mum?"

The world went tipping off to the side for Giles and Joyce. Even Spike and Buffy exchanged a puzzled look.

"Instinct." The vampire shrugged. Joyce was the mother of his future wife, and the only thing close to a mum her had- or had had for a hundred odd years.

_Spike married to my daughter. I'm going to be a mother-in-law! My daughter's getting married unless I can stop them from- no. No I can either take them both or lose them both. She's getting married..._

_Spike calling Joyce his mother. He doesn't recall his own. I suppose, at this rate, it may be years, maybe decades before he remembers the better part of two centuries back to the point where he had a family. Dear Lord. Can I truly feel sympathy? _A flash of his own mother, gone but mercifully never forgotten, assailed him. Take her presence from his mind and it felt like half his childhood, half the innocent belief in making the world a better place went with her. _Yes. It seems I can._

"Well- uh- there's hamburger or chicken." Joyce faltered.

"Oooh, burgers." Buffy looked enthusiastic suddenly.

"Make mine rare. Very rare." Spike grinned and Joyce found herself grinning back.

"You two can set the table. Giles, relax, you're a guest."

"Ha." Giles pushed up his sleeves and followed her into the kitchen. "Thank you for treating me like one, but Buffy's been my family for four years and I-" _Probably really ought not to mention things like that at this sensitive moment..._

"Yup. So they tell me. One big, crazy messed up family." Buffy seemed cheerful in the midst of her worry.

Spike cocked his head and looked at her, moving swiftly behind her, head on her shoulder as he whispered. "Dunno why, but family has a very nice ring to it. 'Specially now a days. Oh, gotta look for a flat soon's our paychecks come in."

"We need furniture. Well- a bed..." There was a husky chuckle and a higher pitched giggle over it, the supernatural pair so wrapped up in their own world that a lot of times they seemed to forget anyone else existed with them.

Joyce sighed a prayer under her breath and found Giles doing the same. They exchanged their own muted smiles.

"Well. Erm. If that was too forward, o-or presumptuous sounding, that remark about being in the family, I-" He tried to explain his statement away.

Joyce laughed shortly, a despairing, exhausted laugh. "Oh no you don't. If you're family- you can help me deal with those two." She said in a rare burst of neediness, a strong woman, like her daughter, who realized the more she struggled into Buffy's world, the more help she'd need to cope with it. "No way you get to go back to guest status now." She could tell by the handsome academic's smile that he wouldn't have it any other way.

* * *

><p>"Finn- your job is to show our guests the locations with the heaviest activity." Andrews instructed brusquely, head swimming with a thousand details. Prepping for this high security court martial was a nightmare- made worse because the perpetrator wasn't even in their custody. Fremont said Walsh's call would come at noon tomorrow, and he'd handle that. Then Andrews would be in charge of taking all further instructions from there, the official closing and cleaning of the base, the debriefing and reassigning of all personnel.<p>

Apparently, Walsh's captors- whoever they were, they seemed to make Fremont dance to their tune, unusual for him- wouldn't move an inch unless their requirements were met. Fremont had to have the base totally shut down, and the body from 314 and proof of Walsh's nefarious plans in hand for the court martial, before the professor's captors would negotiate the actual release. At noon tomorrow- everything would begin to move, and move fast.

Hernandez's clean up crew weren't content to take the body and transfer it to the court martial location (undisclosed at this time). No, they were supposedly patrolling tonight to have some objective background information to add to the report presented at the hearing- but Andrews knew they were doing more than that. Raiding the labs, taking away armored black truck after armored black truck of evidence. Scouring every inch of this place, this base, this campus, even this town for proof, for victims, innocent and otherwise, of the Initiative's screw up. Any demons, chipped or unchipped were going to be counted against them, for failing to kill dangerous beasts- or failing that, for restraining them and setting them free without a clear plan in place for what would happen next. Knowing now that the chip was only one step in Walsh's pyramid of building mindless, obedient soldiers wasn't going to make the project look good. Knowing that the whole program was cast in a bad light, no matter what they did- made Andrews distance himself from the whole event. He had his own task to attend to. How to write up his own version of a case that probably wouldn't have seemed out of place at the Hague...

"Yes, Sir. Just point me to their C.O."

"Out by the ammo room. Lt. Smith."

"Lt. Smith. Got it." Riley walked off briskly. It was dark now, and the forces were suited up. Hernandez's "Recovery Team" was in night raiding gear, black on black on black, almost invisible in the dark, their helmets on, headsets and night vision locked in. "Lt. Smith?"

A figure at the far end of the ammo room turned and faced him.

"I have some maps of the area, the high traffic areas, big bag and tag areas you might want before you move out." Riley approached.

"Thanks." The voice was muffled and hands reached up and tugged off the occupant's helmet. "We could use those. We're flying blind here. When you guys want to keep a secret, you keep it- well- from most of the world."

Riley felt his replies screech to a halt before even forming. The voice was matter of fact, maybe slightly friendly- but above all- female. And the face under the helmet- hello poster girl for what a real woman warrior ought to look like. Gorgeous but strong and tough and -oh God, when had black ops wear become so damn sexy?

"Lt. Smith." She stuck out her hand as she approached.

"Agent Finn." He croaked. "Riley Finn."

"Sam Smith." Riley's stare seemed to go right through her kevlar, and then he shook himself back to his manners and his mission. Smith decided she liked that right away. An agent and a gentleman. "Okay, Finn, what've you got for me?"

_A whole lot of problems... but I'm willing to bet this one does things by the book. Unlike certain troublemaking blondes I thought I knew._ His heart pierced him for a second, for angry feelings about Buffy and for at himself for getting emotionally tangled up in a mess like this with a girl he'd only known for part of a semester. "Uh. Maps." He finally said. Lt. Smith eyed him curiously. "Sorry. I- uh- sorry. It's been a long week."

Smith regarded him. "I guess so. From what they told me. I bet there's a lot more than they can say in the files."

Riley's paranoia- never far from the surface these days- kicked back to the front. "What do you mean? Lieutenant." He remembered her title.

"Papers are so impersonal, they're official. All the battles and search missions have real people in your unit in them, so they're really a lot worse than the report can ever show you." She stated, a little edge in her voice.

Riley let himself relax. "You're right."

"If you want to talk while you're showing me the maps-"

"I cannot disclose, Lt. Smith."_ I don't want to. I don't want you to know deep I'm in it, why I'm in it. I just can't wait to get out of here, with my conscious clean and the town's shades of gray no longer visible._ "The report'll have to do."

"I respect that." Smith genuinely did. She smiled slightly and he smiled back. "So. Any tips for my unit?"

"You ever fought demons?"

"A few. Not in a residential area. I've been on maneuvers with a squad in Belize before. No civilians to worry about." She explained.

"Oh. With Billings?"

"Yeah, that's him." Sam smiled more unguardedly.

"Hey. They want me to go there, too."

"Really?"

"Andrews told me that was a possibility."

"Small world."

"Getting smaller all the time."

* * *

><p>Joyce felt like she was trying to make small talk with three strangers instead of having a meal with her daughter, a family friend, and a family- well a family enemy she supposed. "You know- you used to make me put the ketchup on in a smiley face before you'd even take a bite." Joyce passed the condiments to her daughter who applied them to her hamburger.<p>

"Yeah?" Buffy seemed interested- yet pained, hearing about a childhood habit that she couldn't recall.

"Oh- and you wouldn't eat peas until we hid them in mashed potatoes. Do you remember that, Sweetie? You used to say they were green polka dots."

"Cute." Buffy smiled as best she could. Dinner conversation had been falling into this pattern all night. Politeness followed by awkward silence, followed by a comment about the food, followed by her mother playing a round of mental scrapbook. Then hopeful looks that slowly faded as no childhood memory suddenly reasserted itself- and back to politeness again.

"Many's the time I lectured you about a balanced diet. Slayer metabolism can only do so much, you need to feed it the proper ratio of protein to carbs for optimum performance." Giles stepped into the breach that grew wider and wider as seconds passed and Buffy wasn't able to play along with Joyce's trip down memory lane.

"I eat okay!" Buffy felt under scrutiny- again- and reacted.

"A- a, oh now what are those things called?" Giles frowned for a moment before continuing, "Ah- a 'Twinkie' is not a good lunch!" Giles said sternly.

"Well, when we have our own flat, we'll take turns cookin'." Spike growled protectively. "I make a mean omelette and they've got protein enough."

"When we're nor hiding in caves and abandoned mansions or trying to escape army guys with brain blasters we'll do better. Okay?" Buffy put down her burger and forced a smile to her face. It was her "I'm trying to make you happy, everyone please be happy and don't push me!" smile. She'd warn it for years, and even without recalling it, she pulled it to her face again.

Giles recognized it instantly. He'd seen it often when she lied to appease her mother, when he came to collect her for training, for research, for battles. She wore it when "studying at the library" was code for "slaying something which is my sacred calling and will save your life, but you won't support me on it". _I was right about the instincts. She'll try to spare Joyce pain, even at the cost of her own frustrations. _"I'm sure you will. Joyce is an excellent cook and I'm sure she'll help you learn all your old favorite dishes." He said comfortingly. "Like- um- Joyce, that delicious dinner you brought over to me after- Jenny passed. I can't recall it exactly, but it was- was very good." He seemed to struggle to swallow for a moment. He couldn't recall eating anything, but Joyce had brought him a meal in his grief.

A spasm of pain passed between the two older humans and Buffy and Spike exchanged a pained look on a different level.

"Just a casserole..." Joyce looked at her plate sadly.

"It was very kind of you." He said staunchly.

_I hate this. Not even being able to be there for him when he hurts. He's always been there for me. Even if I can't remember most of it..._ Buffy silently poked at her plate. Spike reached across and took her hand under the table.

_You're here now, you've got a clean slate. Can be there for him all over again. _Spike squeezed her hand tightly.

She gave him a grateful look. Her mother and Giles were conversing in low tones at one end of the table, and she decided to do the same. "Thanks."

"No problem." Spike's eyes spoke volumes even though his mouth said just two little words.

Neither of them realized they'd had part of their conversation silently, it just flowed so seamlessly between them.

"We should probably get to bed early. Supernatural disaster coming to a place near us." She quipped.

"An' I gotta start work. Start our nest egg."

"A nest egg." Buffy got a radiant glow on her face. _A nest. As in a home. For us. A place, a real place for the two of us to belong in the world. We belong to each other, but it's nice to have a place where that belonging can happen._ "How do you do that?" She marveled. "Always make me feel better?"

"Same way you do it to me. Instinct. Instinct to protect you is stronger than ever now." His fingertips ran lightly through her hair until he landed on her neck. She jumped slightly, and her own hand came up to caress his jaw, thumb on his lips. Shared blood. A claim. Some sort of vow neither understood, but were beginning to feel, without even realizing it.

"D'you still want our first dance to be _Wind Beneath My Wings_?" Spike asked, details from the night of their "false" engagement very clear in his mind, as they had been almost since the beginning of their predicament.

"It's appropriate, I guess. I wonder why I thought it would be, back then, when we weren't really in love?"

"Maybe it was instinct then, too. Doesn't run like your mind does, runs like your body tells it to. Doesn't that song talk about bein' a hero an' havin' someone at your back? You must've known in a crunch that'd be me."

"It says it was cold in my shadow. That I got all the glory and you got all the pain." She whispered, barely audible. At the other end of the table, their whispers went unnoticed, the older parental pair engaged in serious whisperings of their own, sharing fears and probable solutions for the future, unmindful of the younger couple.

"That's not true."

"Not anymore, anyway. Maybe I thought it was then."

"Maybe it was s'posed to be about 'us', how we see each other."

"I don't see you like that anymore. If that's how I thought I saw you before."

"Hm. We'll make our own music." Spike leaned forward slowly, sliding deeper into her palms. He turned his head to her, jaw jutting, tongue curling as he forcibly inhaled waiting for the rush, the bite- _the bite_? Spike blinked and just let her nuzzle her cheek to his. _The other one. Drusilla. Must've bit sometimes. Like a kiss, but it's darker, deeper, not for the human, for the beast. _

_ I can bite you. You're my sexy beast. I'm your Slayer. I can bite. Just not like her. Just not here..._

"Hrm. We'll do the washin' up." Spike rose briskly and whisked Buffy's plate and his own, still half full from the table.

"But-"

"Not that hungry, Mom!" Buffy quickly joined her sweetheart in grabbing their glasses and silverware from their places. "Just tired. Very tired. Besides, I'm sure you guys have lots to talk about. You talk. We'll sleep. Wake me if you need something slain!"

Joyce stared after her daughter with a suspicious look. "She still talks like she's on fast forward when she's making excuses." Joyce muttered.

Giles nodded. "I know. For a cunning girl with plenty of practice at keeping secrets- she still hasn't mastered lying to us."

There was a pause. "Not anymore." Joyce gave a pinched grin, and lifted her glass with a slightly shaking hand.

Giles steadied the glass by raising his own to rest against it. "To small mercies. And seeing clearly."

"To small mercies and seeing clearly." She rejoined.

* * *

><p>Tara and Willow's joined hands raised a pentagram of pencils a good three feet in the air. "This is so cool!" Willow looked enchanted. She'd completely forgotten asking Tara over to practice simple spells was only a pretext. "I haven't had a friend to practice magic with in a really long time." She didn't look at Amy in her cage as she spoke, even though concern prickled sharply.<p>

"M-me, too. N-not since my mom died." Tara let her fingers loosen and the pentagram floated down a bit.

"Your mom was a wicca too?"

"Yeah. My grandmother, too. And her mom. Back for y-years." Tara's nervousness caused her concentration to waver and two pencils fell to the air with wooden taps. "Sorry!" She apologized contritely.

"No! No, don't apologize. Your focus is so amazing. I can't do anything complex like that, making patterns and making stuff float in formation." Willow looked at her with eyes full of admiration.

"Oh, I couldn't make them float for so long or so high!" Tara's stutter vanished in her eagerness to praise. "You're so powerful!"

"You're so skilled!"

"W- We're a good team."

Willow flushed with pleasure. For once, she felt equally valuable in a friendship. In a friendship with a girl, she should have said. Like with Buffy- well- she was a superhero. Cordelia- that wasn't exactly a friendship, it was more like not killing each other. With Xander- they were both nerds and they were sworn to be nerdy best friends until one of them died. But with Tara, right away she felt admired and she was doing some admiring of her own. Balanced.

"I know it's getting late. D-do you maybe wanna keep doing some spells for a little bit, and then -um- you could crash here. My roommate went home for the semester a few weeks early." Willow really hoped this clumsy lead would be enough to keep Tara safe inside, with her. Maybe she should have stayed in Tara's dorm room, only she hadn't thought she'd be able to "invite herself" to hang out there and stay over. Maybe it was a mistake to bring her closer to the situation. Maybe she should have pushed her away, kept Tara from associating with her and all the dangers surrounding her. On the other hand- doing nothing when there was even a tiny, infinitesimal chance that Riley's coded email meant people who weren't exactly typical humans, i.e. magic users, witches and wiccas, would be on the hit list tonight, Willow couldn't leave the only other truly magical student she knew alone, maybe to get snapped up somehow, maybe not to have anything happen at all. She just wasn't willing to take the risk.

"I- I don't want to impose." Tara would have loved to stay. She hadn't really made any friends since she'd moved her, a year ago now.

"Are you kidding? I love having you over. Not just for spells." She smiled and patted Tara's hand. "You're really sweet and you're really helpful and nice and-y'know. The kind of person you'd want to hang out with it." Tara's blushing beam made Willow's stomach do an awkward shiver it had never associated with girls before. She ignored it.

"I'd love to stay. I w-won't keep you up too much longer though." With the semester ending and finals finishing, they needed to sleep.

Willow's tone was regretful, then resigned. "Ohhhh. Okay. We'll stop at midnight."

"And miss the witching hour?" Tara teased.

"I'd rather miss the witching hour than turn us into pumpkins." Tara laughed but Willow looked serious. "With my track record- we probably seriously should." Tara's laugh died and her blue eyes widened. Her pale cheeks turned pink and then a conspiratorial look came over her face as she leaned forward.

"Once I accidentally turned my hair purple during spell."

"No way!"

"Yeah- never do magic with your mouth full. Violence and violets sound a lot alike."

Willow giggled. "You wanted violent hair?"

"No... It's a long story."

"Well- we have until midnight..."

* * *

><p>Buffy looked at the glowing red numbers on the bedside clock. Just before midnight. She must've fallen asleep. Round one of lovemaking had stayed round one, no instant replay like usual. It was her fault. She'd fallen asleep instantly, tired, emotionally strained, and finally feeling safe, not so much because of the house and her family around, but because of finally being alone with Spike after a day of keeping her brave face on.<p>

The sex was almost silent, almost still, but it was aggressively comforting, if that made any sense. Buffy felt her insides twitch in an ache that matched the ache in her tangled mind as it came awake. More memories returning, faster now, the more she healed, and yet she still lacked that sense of connection to them. The only thing she felt she had a real connection to in this half-recalled world was Spike. While everything else was coming back and proving to her how much she'd loved and relied on her friends and family, and every memory was showing her how much she'd hated him- she still found the only connection that was deepening consistently was between her and Spike. _Probably because we chose each other in spite of everything, not knowing there _was _an "everything" waiting to leap out at us. Then by the time we realized it- it didn't matter anymore... _

"Come here, Poppet." Spike rolled to his side, a low whisper in her ear, like wind through reeds.

"Did I wake you?"

"I know when you're awake." He said simply, and pulled her face to his, placing a deep, single kiss on her lips.

"It's getting easier being with them, but-"

"It's easiest bein' with just us." He concluded, whispering as his hands scooped up her back, sliding her to himself, chest to chest as they turned, tangling the cool white sheets around them.

"You don't mind that I'm all clingy?"

"I'm just as bad." He smiled.

"You're not."

"No. I'm worse. I just don't show it, but- you've got all these mates and a mum in your life, all of 'em waiting to hold onto, and I've just got you. Everything else in my life is gone anyway, an' even if it wasn't, don't want it anymore."

"Oh, Baby- you've always got me. Always got me to hold onto."

"I know." He tightened his grip. "Why d'you think I'm doin' it?" He smirked and chuckled, that velvety rippling kind of low laughter that seemed to fill the dark.

Her hands slid up his back, pulling him more deeply on top of herself. "Just like before?" She made a little muted whimper.

"Just like before." He agreed.

Amazing how two forms don't have to move much to convey a wealth of meaning, if the meaning is already so clear between them.

A tangle of hands, clasped above their heads on a pillow, the figure on top changing every few moments. Hands breaking free every few moments as well, to cup a face or lift a chin, heads tossing like proud horses to find the right fit, lips pressing to a dozen sweet spots only the two of them knew.

_More. More, there needs to be more. _Something in Buffy cried out that there was a piece missing, something that remained unsatisfied. It couldn't be something physical, because that was overwhelmingly pleasurable, from the first thrust to the final explosion.

_I know, Luv, I know. It burns and needs somethin' to soothe it. _Spike pushed in harder, hip bones grating to hers, the forms in bed so passionate, yet only moving a few inches to an outside onlooker.

_Feels like - like I'm walking out to you on a bridge and I can't reach you because there's just one big piece missing. Need you. Tighter. Harder. More._ Her nails sank in desperately, streaking red lines across the back of his neck and down silvery white shoulders that almost glowed in the moonlit gray room.

Little scratches, little hints of crimson made him realize it. Blue eyes turned jungle cat golden as they rolled and tossed one more time. His hands deftly caught her head and tilted it back. _I will love you forever. No link is missin' from our bridge, it's jus' invisible. Have to learn where to step. Trust your heart, not your eyes._

_See the beauty under a grotesque mask. That mask that means he's mine, really mine, the raw warrior for the slayer, the gentleman for the girl who so would like to be a lady- if that could ever happen. I love you forever. Yours. Your wife. Your mate. Yours. _

_ Mine. _A deep, guttural hiss that somehow sputtered out as he bit down and felt blood soak his tongue and lips. He drank greedily and kissed her hard, scarlet trails on flesh from jaw to lips.

So raw, almost too raw, too wrong, blood invading her mouth. Her teeth crashed together on his lip in a searing kiss and split the flesh, and his blood ran with hers. Swallowing by sheer force of habit, sheer need for air on her part.

The wild restlessness soothed as if by magic. Chests pounded together and Spike roughly ran his thumb over her mouth, his tongue restoring her neck at the same time._ It's the words. The shared blood. Like last night. _

_ Connected. Really like a bridge._

_ I know it's not normal for humans, Poppet, I'm sorry if it's too much._

_ It's okay. We don't only live in the human world. We're more than human sometimes. I don't care what world we live in, as long as you're in it with me._

_ Always. Forever._

_ Forever mine._

_ Forever yours._

With a sudden burst of urgency they resumed, rolling together once again, fingers locked, pelvises locked, hearts locked. Minds in sync.

The pair never realized, in their passionate union, that they'd stopped speaking aloud, that their unorthodox vows, their vampiric claim, had rendered the need to vocalize unnecessary.

As they continued to converse at some level higher than speech, making sweet lovers' promises in silence, they were unaware they were no longer speaking aloud.

Nor were they aware that had they tried to break that quiet with some external speech- they would be unable to.

Unbeknownst to the lovers, the plague of silence had descended.

_To Be Continued_


	23. Chapter 23

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Note: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Author's Second Note: Thank you for waiting so patiently, yet again. I'm still having a little struggle jumping back into this complex storyline. You might need a refresher as well, so I suggest some rereading is in order! _

_Author's Third Note: You have to imagine the episode "Hush" as we go into this chapter and the next, and imagine trying to write all that- with no visual aids. You know I like challenge, so bear with me and here we go._

_Author's Last Note, I promise: I am thoroughly terrible person for not writing thank you notes immediately after receiving reviews. I promise I will get to thank all of you- unless you have your PM disabled which some of you do. If you haven't gotten my thank you note by the date of this chapter's publication, please make sure your PM function is on if you want PMs._

_Dedicated to DLillith21, ginar369, Lil-Leti, Lynbie, MMWillow, Sweet-T3, trashyfiction, Fanficfemale,McPastey, Waddiwasiwitch,omslagspapper, cavemenftw, medusamylove, Spikeluv4, brittanyr1221,lisape,Inazea, suchagleekx, Redeclipedtwilight,RagnarBlackmane, Lithium Reaper, Little Missy123 _

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously not mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part XXIII

Spike woke up first, shaking his head confusedly, trying to get various images out of it. Bigger and bigger parts of his life were coming back to him- and he was amazed at how much all of it seemed to blend together, a monotony- unless this little blonde bombshell was involved. Drinking, smoking cigarettes, and killing things, and putting up with that twit, Harmony, so recently and un-lamentably dusted. But when Buffy was in the picture- time slowed down, evened out, fights became crystal clear, blurred days turned into epic stories. God, she was hot when she was fighting... His body woke up with an internal snarl of lust, lust strong enough to cloud out the wonder of why the snarl stayed silent.

Buffy's recuperating realizations were more frustrating. College must suck. Books, jerks, and monsters! Weird monsters. Big hairy dog things with semi-human faces, human girls whose faces seemed to come off, living skeletons, tiny devils the size of dolls, and vampires. Always vampires, even Spike made the enemy list. Why did she only remember the fighting? Fighting and sadness and not fitting in? She woke up in relief, glad it was all in the past, and glad- as she turned to a very eager and aroused good morning embrace, that she finally fit in again. She always would, too, now, with this man beside her, her other half, her "mate".

_Mmm, yes, my sweet girl. "Mate". Not so offensive soundin' now that it's true. _Spike seized her and she delighted in returning the gesture just as enthusiastically.

* * *

><p>Giles awoke to a soft, steady thumping. Faint, but rhythmic. He would never have heard it if everything hadn't been so perfectly still. <em>What is that?<em> His brows drew together as he sat up in the spare room, rumpled tee shirt and flannel trousers clinging to him as he groped towards alertness. The thumping sound sped, then subsided, then sped again. His eyes widened. _Oh surely not. Of all the horrors I get to witness, that shouldn't be one of them._

"Oh, dear Lord!" The houseguest cried in annoyance. Only there was no cry, no audible one. He tried again. And again. And then let out a string of words best left unheard anyway.

* * *

><p>Spike's efforts to suppress a wild, vampiric roar of completion failed. He watched his future wife shuddering under him, nubile form twisting and clutching at him and with him, making it a criminal offense to stay silent when she forced him to release his pent up pleasure.<p>

"Spike!" Buffy admonished, blushing as her groom-to-be flung back his head and cried out his triumph.

The effect was much like watching the MGM lion with the sound turned off. The blondes stared at each other, wide eyed and horrified, all the bliss suddenly replaced by the dread realization.

_Oh bollocks. _Spike's internal dialogue wasn't lost, and it was vehement.

_Is this what a claim does? _If Buffy could have screeched, she would have. _I know we said we'd be okay, just the two of us in our own little world, but eventually I want to order a pizza and this mind reading thing isn't going to cut it at Domino's!_

_Slayer! Calm down. _Spike rolled apart from her- and then returned, sharing a kiss that was meant to soothe the rising panic. They stumbled out of bed and into clothes, the silence a call to action._ This isn't the claim. I think._

_You _think?_ You don't know?_

_Uh-_no, _I don't soddin' _know, _had m' brain cleared out. _The testiness was there, even in her head, the evident snark, and they exchanged a glare as they both began zipping their jeans, his black, hers blue. _It's not the claim. It's the plague._

Her wide eyes widened further. She echoed her dream words, eerily singsonging the lines in their silent shared consciousness, the creepy song now trapped in their minds. _"Can't even shout, can't even cry, the Gentlemen are coming by, looking in windows, knocking on doors, they need to take seven and they might take yours, can't call to mom, can't say a word, you're gonna die screaming but you won't be heard."_

Spike shivered and moved closer to her, their momentary annoyance replaced by fear. He could not only hear Buffy's thoughts, but this time he could hear the dream as it replayed in her head, and the soft tones of a child singing the ghastly words made the terror suddenly much more palpable.

_She was right. Spike, we can't speak. We can't say anything! _Buffy gripped his arms.

_Yeah- out loud._ The worried look was replaced with a sudden hint of that bad boy smug smirk that was so ingrained in him that it could never be erased by science or magic. _Reckon our little songbird of doom didn't count on you an' me, Luv. Might be silent, but I hear you loud an' clear._

Comforted somewhat, Buffy loosened her grip, but leaned in, seeking a reassuring kiss from her partner. _That's right. That's right, Spike, together, even if it's only the two of us, we can stop anything. And they can't break this, can't take this away._

_ That's right, Luv. No silence in the world could ever take the sound of your voice from me. _He kissed her harder, arms circling her waist, pulling her deeper into the needed comfort, lifting her from the floor slightly. _We'll handle this like we handle everything they throw at us. Two bodies, but we're all wrapped up together inside, always will be. _Know _each other, Poppet, Slayer, even if we have a hard time rememberin' each other. We don't even need to talk..._

This heartfelt, romantic exchange was shattered by a rampant banging on the door. They both jumped and their mouths separated with a wet, silent, gasp.

_Yeah. We're fine._ Buffy smiled ruefully and leased herself down. _The _rest_ of the world, however..._

* * *

><p><em> "<em>It's not world wide. I've had emails in response to my queries from the Washington and Arizona base saying everything is business as usual there." Andrews typed on a keyboard and a mechanical voice relayed his message to the forty odd commandos and his staff, plus the other retrieval team. "Smith. Was this caused by something you saw last night on patrol? Finn, has this ever happened here before?"

Smith and Finn stood to speak, both smartly erect and ready to address the current commander. Of course, that proud sight was marred by the fact that they both then had to look helplessly around and wait for Andrews to motion them forward so they could type their responses.

They weren't helpful. Although those on duty last night had lost their voices and been aware of it earlier than the sleeping residents of Sunnydale, no one could pinpoint when, how, where, or why. No one knew what triggered it.

"The cause doesn't matter, does it, Sir?" Riley typed. "We just have to focus on the cure."

Andrews huffed and took control of the keyboard again. "It does matter. In a matter of minutes, this town is going to go into panic. And-" Andrews looked up, into the small crowd and then sighed, his frame moving even if no sound emitted, "we'll be put under quarantine soon. The evidence for trial is out of the quarantine zone, out of city limits by now. But whatever did this to us is most likely still still in town."

There was silence, but there would have been by default. In a world where requesting permission to speak was mandatory before speaking anyway, the forces shifted uncomfortably. Finally, one of the Initiative boys raised his hand and was called up to type.

"What should we do, Sir? Orders?"

Andrews paused and then typed a reply. "Put on your civvies. Walk the town. Keep order. Report anything unusual that happened in the last 12 hours back to me. Anyone with lab training- stay on base and start figuring out what caused it and how the hell to treat it." His hands lingered over the keyboard for a minute and then typed, while looking at Finn, "Guess you'd better get to the techs. We need some way to communicate from town to base, and walkies won't work."

Riley rubbed his eyes and nodded. _We're so screwed. And we're military! Wonder how everyone else is coping?_

* * *

><p>How everyone at the Summers' house was coping was by writing furiously on a large sheet of packing paper that Joyce retrieved from one of her shipment crates. It was spread across the dining room table and four pens were racing across it. The final message, written in huge letters, as if shouting, was from Giles.<p>

_We said we'd meet at my flat in the morning! We can't call, I'll not have you wandering around aimlessly, and it's the only meeting place we've established. Let's GO._

The four exchanged glances. _I'll go get more paper, _Joyce scribbled and dashed away upstairs.

Once gone, Giles flipped the paper over and fixed his daughter figure with a glare as he wrote._You two can communicate? _Buffy and Spike nodded The couple had been quick to explain that morning that they could still keep lines of communication open, though unable to speak. Joyce had assumed it was something to do with either the attack they'd shared, or Slayer/Vampire related. Giles was not at all sure of that. _How?_ the pen demanded.

Buffy lifted her hair and Spike lovingly traced her scar, looking at the older man.

Giles sputtered, he scribbled, crossed out, and then threw the pen angrily.

Buffy's head drooped. _No matter what I do, I disappoint someone. Except you. _Her filling eyes turned to Spike. _This is what I don't like remembering. How I'm the hero- but I never seem to do anything without someone acting like I should have done it differently._

Spike took her hand, held it tenderly for a second, and then reached over and tapped Giles hard on the arm. After a fierce battle between hard eyes, Spike's softened and he took Buffy's hand, motioning placing a ring on it. Giles looked puzzled.

Buffy understood, and seized a pen._ It's like marriage,_ she wrote.

Giles took the pen from her and wrote a differing opinion. _It's not! It's eternal, it's unbreakable, you cannot reverse a "mating"._ He added multiple exclamation points for emphasis.

_Good. I don't want to reverse it. I want someone to love me. No matter what. _Buffy put her pen down gently, and turned from him, hiding in Spike's arms.

Over her turned form, Spike and Giles had another battle in facial expressions. Spike's was accusatory, jerking his chin towards the note last written, giving Giles a pointed "Are you just gonna let that comment hang there?" stare.

Giles put his head in his hands for the tenth time that morning. His poor girl. Of course she wanted to be loved permanently, more so than ever now, when everything in her world had seemed so impermanent and easily erased. He had grave doubts about this particular situation, but he did not have doubts about the girl turning away from him. He wrote a note under hers, and gently, with Spike's help, forced her to face the paper and read his message.

_Then you have at least two people in your life who meet that requirement._ Giles smiled haltingly and opened his arms. Buffy instinctively bolted into them, relieved to find that unconditional love had at least one more source.

Positions now reversed, Spike pressed a hand to his unbeating heart and gave Giles a look of gratitude. Giles dipped his head once, acknowledging with a sheepish smile that it was really a matter of course. There was never any doubt, not on his part, that he loved her no matter what, even if the "what" in question was earth shattering and unheard of.

_Let's get going then, Luv, _Spike broadcast to his sweetheart. She nodded and sniffed in bravely, heading to get her purse. Giles watched the two move fluidly, silently.

_This might actually come in handy,_ the Watcher contemplated, and hastily crumpled up the paper as Joyce came down the stairs.

* * *

><p>When the foursome arrived at Giles' dwelling, Spike leading the way in a haze of smoking blankets, it was only to be greeted by another foursome waiting anxiously on the stairs leading to his flat. Giles plowed past them to unlock the door and let Spike seek cover, then turned back to exchange meaningful glances with his surrogate family.<p>

Xander protectively herded Anya in front of him, Willow went straight for a hug from Buffy, out of habit, and was glad that Buffy embraced her back. Trailing shyly behind her was a pale, honey blonde female with a timid smile and apparent fear of eye contact.

Willow held up a small dry erase board and marker, pulling both from her messenger bag. "This is Tara." She wrote.

"Hi." Tara wrote on her own. Everyone waved, then turned back to Willow, eyes asking questions.

"She's my friend." Willow wrote. Tara beamed, Spike and Buffy nodded, but the others didn't seem satisfied. And Willow could understand that. One didn't just invite random "friends" to hang out at Scooby meetings, especially not in full crisis mode. Not to mention- they were outcasts. It took a lot to even _meet _someone who could possibly maybe mesh a teeny tiny bit with this group. Willow smiled tightly at Tara and added another line under her explanation. "She's a witch, too. She's cool."

Xander smiled and nodded politely- then yanked the board free and asked with the marker, "Cool? Cool like hip, or cool like won't freak? And where'd you get the boards? Did you get one for me?" He passed the board back and gave Tara an apologetic glance. _This is why God invented whispering. So you can politely ask about someone without impolitely doing it in front of their faces. Geez..._

Willow circled "cool like won't freak" and everyone relaxed- a little. Hand shakes and scribbled introductions began, like the world's oddest mixer, everyone passing around two small boards, trying to be kind to the newcomer, and anxiously waiting until they could get down to business.

Joyce cleared off the coffee table and spread her sheets of packing paper out and Giles distributed pens. He began to write a solemn introduction of their day's mission, something along the lines of "We're facing immense difficulty-" but was cut off by Anya, who'd retrieved the newspaper from his doorstep and was waving around an article on the front page, and Xander, who'd dug through Giles' living room corner to unearth the ancient television and turn it on.

The newscasters voice made them all jump. A voice, something that was so common just last night, now seemed like an amazing prize and a jarring discord in the silent world they'd been thrust into. Worse, the words the reporter was speaking worried all of them.

"Big news item from Sunnydale California. Apparently the entire town has been quarantined due to an epidemic of, as strange at this may sound, _laryngitis_. It seems the town has been rendered unable to speak. There's no word yet what might have caused this or what other effects might be seen from this epidemic. Local authorities have issued a statement, a written statement, I should say, blaming recent flu vaccinations. A few skeptics call it a city wide hoax. In the meanwhile, Sunnydale has effectively shut down. All schools and businesses will be closed for the time being

and residents are advised to stay home and rest up. Centers for disease control have ordered the entire town quarantined. No one can go in or out until the syndrome is identified or the symptoms disappear. We'll bring you more on that story as it develops."

The group exchanged another silent volley of looks, some panicked, some worried, some scared. Except Anya, who still seemed to find the newspaper's headline more worrisome than the news that they were cut off from the rest of the world. She slammed the paper in front of Spike and Buffy this time instead of Giles.

"Should have done that in the first place." Spike mouthed with a smirk. Anya rolled her eyes and nodded.

Buffy began to read, expression turning from worried and curious to disgusted, outraged, and fearful as a triple assault of bad news hit her. Three different victims, three lives lost, in the most horrible way, hearts cut out. And all of it happened last night, while she slept.

Her knees seemed to suddenly give and she sat hard on the sofa, Spike rushing to sit beside her, taking the paper from her boneless fingers. _We should have been out there, Spike. _Even inside his head, he could hear that her voice was strained and choked with unshed, self-hating tears.

_ Sorry about these three, Luv, but can't agree. If you'd been out, or I'd been out, maybe one of us would be pushin' up the daisies just now. And who's gonna save the rest of the world if not for us, yeah?_

_ I could have saved those people! _Buffy's eyes sparked angrily and Spike passed the paper to Giles and Joyce, who took it, making inaudible gasps in silent horror as they read the headlines.

_ You could have, Slayer, I know that. But sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better. Like you an' me. _He took her hand firmly._ Not to go all Sherlock on you, but these three deaths are a clue. Never fought off a plague before, an' I think we can use all the clues we can get._

_ Yeah. _Buffy shivered and watched as one by one her friends and family sank to a sitting positions, voices and hands stilled, numb with horrified disbelief. _What kind of plague takes everyone's voice away- and then starts cutting out their hearts, too? _Spike's thoughts didn't penetrate back clearly at her as they were a confused jumble of worry and strategies that didn't count as communication so weren't accessible to the Claimed pair. Instead his already white knuckles turned whiter as he held her hand more tightly.

_Their poor families! Lovers, maybe. Kids, maybe... _Buffy looked at Spike, and his dark blue eyes agreed with her, but held back. She knew why. He was too busy being grateful that she hadn't been on the victims' list. Because I am his family, his lover, his hope for a family of our own, even though we know that won't ever happen, Buffy thought and rubbed his tensed fist with her thumb. She stopped sending the vibes of anger and self-berating, and looked determined instead.

_You were right, Spike. Really right. How can police even question people? They'll be looking for some serial killer, but this is a plague. Or something creepy and mystical the police won't know what to do with. The families- they can't even talk about it, can't even comfort each other. And sometimes words are too hard to put down on paper and you just have to be with the person who's your whole world and let them make it better. I would have gone insane if they took our memories _and _our voices. I can't imagine if we'd never been able to just talk about everything in our heads. _

Spike nodded at her as she paused, waiting for her to finish so he could share his own thought, the one that was starting to become coherent, and more and more desperate to be shared.

Buffy concluded, taking both his hands now. _Bad things have to happen sometimes, to give you the tools to fight, I guess._

Spike kissed her passionately, suddenly almost pulling her into his lap as they turned and grabbed onto one another, causing Xander to give a "What the heck?" expression, both hands raised. Spike and Buffy ignored him.

_ Like you and me, Slayer. Worst things in the world brought us together. But I got a whole new world 'cause of it. Something worth fighting for._

* * *

><p>Giles sighed and rubbed his forehead. He was equal parts relieved and frustrated that he couldn't hear the conversation those two must be having in their linked minds, but being impatient was the emotion winning out. Even with Angel, Buffy had never stopped a group meeting to kiss him heartily. And he supposed Angel wouldn't have allowed that. He was too serious and too hesitant around disaster. Buffy would have been too uncomfortable around the group- especially in the latter half of their relationship.<p>

Which makes no bloody sense, Giles suddenly realized. The Slayer's entire life is devoted to disasters and Buffy's whole life is devoted to this group and her loved ones. Is she to be forever denied a moment of fairytale happiness when the prince sweeps her off her feet and kisses her, because she got dealt the card of knight and savior instead of damsel and princess? All girls want that, and yet every two or three years, the cosmos arbitrarily chooses one girl's dreams to cut off, and one man to watch it happen.

The couple's kiss ended and they sheepishly settled back into the couch, still holding frowned out of habit and then shook his head and smiled slightly. _All things considered, as discomfiting as it is, I think I'd rather watch this. Not that I like Spike all that much- well, I didn't used to. But I'd rather see one happy moment in a story that's supposed to end tragically. _

The middle aged man sighed inside himself and surveyed the group. His own happy moments had come largely from these people, even in the midst of battles and endless research and- _Hang on..._

The group exchanged startled glances as Giles gave a frantic look around all of them, and then dashed to the bookshelf in the hall, a small stack that wasn't related to research, more of his personal enjoyment collection. Anya and Xander gave each other a shrug, Willow tried to give Tara a reassuring smile, but it faltered. It was hard to appear reassuring when you're scared, can't talk, and your father figure went from calm and commanding to leaping around and flipping frantically through a volume yanked from the shelf.

Giles flipped through the pages, looking for one story in particular. Snippets of conversations and fleeting images from yesterday and today tugged at him.

Fairytales...something about fairytales. The conversation was triggered by everyone sitting in the same places as they'd been in yesterday when the conversation was had, although there was the new addition of Tara. Triggered by considering Buffy and Spike as caught in some twisted fairytale. Fairytales... Willow's voice, irate, interrupting the research yesterday, _ "I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't just heard about Hans Christian Demonson and the fact that fairytales are full of evil-y badness."_

_ "Oh, Willow. That's a few isolated cases." _ But there _were_ cases. Real nightmares hidden in children's dreams. Unable to scream. Missing hearts. Something stalking in the night, in the silence- something had nagged in the back of his mind yesterday and compounded with this turn of events it was finally pushed to the front.

The group was surprised as Giles made a silent little victory crow and then all traces of triumph vanished from his face as he slammed an open book down on the coffee table.

Eight heads bent over the pages, illustrated with pen and ink.

"The Silent Kingdom", Joyce underlined the title with her fingertip. Buffy reached down and flipped the pages. Giles frowned but Spike grabbed a pen and scribbled on the paper. "She's getting to the end. See how you beat it."

Giles rolled his eyes and tapped the last paragraph. "The Princess screamed and shattered the silence, and the wicked sons of the quiet realm were banished."

Willow took up her own pen as she beamed, "That's easy! All we have to do is scream and-" her hand slowed and the marker dropped.

Xander patted her shoulder and mouthed, "Love you anyway, Wills."

Buffy threw up her hands and pushed the book away so she had a blank space in front of her to write her tirade. "Great. I'm guessing the 'wicked sons of the quiet realm' are the ones cutting out hearts, and we need to scream to break this plague and the killing and stuff." She looked around, seeing the nods. "Anyone got any brilliant ideas how to get me to scream?" Spike smirked slyly and began to raise his hand. Buffy smacked it down and blushed furiously. She crossed out scream and wrote "to get my voice back?"

No one moved.

Giles considered all the times he'd asked them, particularly Spike, to shut up, told them not to speak. He wished he'd chosen his words more carefully.

* * *

><p><em>Washington, D.C.<em>

"We have to word this very carefully. He's unstable. Don't upset him. We need Walsh to stand trial- or at least alive and in person to answer the questions the Internal Affairs boys asked." Fremont conferred with DuVal as he waited anxiously for the phone to ring. The minute hand on his Rolex ticked from 11:59 to 12:00.

"Unstable? He's a vampire." DuVal muttered.

"He's an unstable vampire." Fremont sighed and stared at the phone.

"Are you sure he meant noon our time?"

"He might have meant noon Pacific time if he's holding her anywhere near the Initiative's base. But we don't know where the hell he is. Dammit." Fremont slammed his hand down by the receiver on his desk.

"Didn't you trace the call, Sir?" DuVal asked hesitantly.

"We tried. It-uh..." Fremont rubbed his temples. How do you explain that the call wasn't "untraceable" but refused to be traced, like some magical boundary was interfering, because by rights, the number should have existed, it appeared on the screens, they had clear identifying markers- yet no trace could be completed. "It didn't work, DuVal. But it doesn't matter as long as this guy-"

The phone rang, and conversation ceased. Fremont swallowed and seized the receiver.

* * *

><p>Maggie Walsh looked up into eyes that were on fire. Full of hellfire. She supposed that was logical. She was in hell, after all.<p>

"You say hello. You say you are fine. Then you give. Me. The. Phone." Angel punctuated his bitten off words with a tug on Walsh's broken fingers. "Are we clear?"

She couldn't stand being talked down to by a- a creature. A deranged creature who had the audacity to wear a human face. In spite of the pain, she spat at him, "Go to hell." Maggie realized belatedly that she had these random flashes of assertiveness and that it was driven by emotion, that which she disapproved of, and she blamed it on the inhumane treatment she'd endured and probably the delirium setting in after a few days without the basic human necessities.

"Why, Mags? You gonna be lonely down there without me?" Angel tightened his grip on the blackened hand.

Walsh found she had no answer to that. For one of the few times in her life, she was speechless, and mutely pressed the last button and heard the automated voice saying her code had been accepted.

"Walsh!" Fremont's voice, heavy with relief, hit her ears.

"Hello, Sir." Maggie's voice cracked, throat dried out from thirst and fear.

"Good news, Walsh. That is- news." Fremont's voice went from relieved to angry. "Andrews called from the base last night. They found your 314 lab and that young man."

"Adam." Maggie's voice held a note of true regret.

"No... Corporal Hearst, Matthew Peter." Fremont was tempted to put his head on the desk. "There's _another _one?"

"His _name_ is Adam!"

Angel gripped her shoulder hard, hard enough to instantly bruise down to the bone. "Hey! The plan was you say you're fine and hand me the phone. Do that, before I give you another reminder."

But Walsh was in that dangerous, get-yourself-killed mindset and she went on. "Adam! _Adam!_ And he's not a victim, he's not dead, he hasn't even been born! He never even opened his eyes!"

"His _name_ was Matthew Peter Hearst and he has a mother, a sister, and roommate back in New York state who think he's missing in action or stuck in military prison and hasn't answered their letters! He's not waiting to be born, Walsh, the boy's been in a glorified meat locker in your goddamned lab rat morgue for a year!" Fremont's blood pressure soared and his already enflamed capillaries turned from red to purplish blue. "His eyes are shut _forever_. Dammit, Walsh have you snapped in just a couple days? What the hell did they do to you?"

"Sir!" DuVal, knowing the bugged state of the phone conversation dared to tug his superior's arm.

"No!" Fremont clapped a hand to his sweating, empurpled brow. "You were one of the best scientists we ever had and you were supposed to be doing research on demons and you end up blowing up some poor human man's head! And all those test subjects! Good God, Walsh we're still trying to clean this up. Do you know half of these people don't have full recollection of their lives before the experiment? The amount of special ops teams we're deploying and utilizing and- and- and you talk about some dead man like he's your baby boy! Have you gone completely ape-shit crazy?"

Angel took the receiver from Walsh's hand, laughing softly, a snicker coming from somewhere at the back of his nose. "Ahhhh, General..." He let out a long, contented, vindicated sigh, and tilted Walsh's head up to meet his charcoal eyes, to look into her glassy, not-quite lucid ones. "The doctor's not in right now." He laughed again, a bitter, twisted sound, but no longer hollow. Full of hate and oddly enough, a little enjoyment. "Y'know- I really hate you army types, have since the 40s, but gosh, I gotta say-" He dropped Maggie's head with a shove, her cranium seesawing back and forth limply, "you do some real nice poetic justice. With a little help. I mean, not to brag, but without me, this show would've-"

"Stop showboating, and name your drop site. We'll arrange for pick up." Fremont cut him off harshly.

"What? Just like that? I'm not stupid, General."

"We found the body. It left last night, and it's on it's way to a secure location, supporting documentation has already been faxed, received, reviewed, filed. By the end of the day, that base will be as empty as a voided egg."

"What about the rest?" _The 're the ones who hurt her. Who hunted her. I have the brains of the outfit- hah, there's a joke, but I don't need her eyes, ears, and hands out there destroying whatever Buffy has left. _Angel refrained from saying anything, contenting himself with holding in his impassioned demands by leaning down to Maggie's level and inhaling. Mmm. Fear, insanity, confusion- his favorite victim smell. He pulled himself up with a jerk as his soul gave a pointed warning shot and Drusilla's- Drusilla's human face dashed before his eyes. "What about your little green men?"

"The Mars project?" DuVal gasped. Fremont waved him away angrily, shaking his head.

"The men will all be debriefed, given standard nondisclosure agreements, and reassigned. We want this stopped as much as you do."

"No. No, there's no one who wants this stopped as much as I do." Angel whispered and turned away from the shell of a human in the chair, holding onto the good things in his mind, why atonement was worth craving, and killing this human wasn't an option, sweet and tempting as it might seem. _Think about Buffy's face. _Buffy's face, not recognizing him. Buffy's face- pressed to Spike's face. "No one wishes this had never happened- more than me." He whispered, more brokenly.

For a moment, even knowing what he was, and what he was doing, Fremont found himself believing him. "Well, it's stopping. You have my word."

Angel laughed, sinking down against the wall of the little ante room where the demon guards let him use the phone. "Your word? Yeah. Hang on, Fremont. I have another call to make first, before I accept 'your word'."

"But-"

"Just hold on. A little patience. After all- you didn't even know this was happening to a couple days ago, you can wait five more minutes." Angel snarled and reached into his pocket. He retrieved his cell phone, and winced when it informed him he had twelve missed calls, all from the only other soul who had his number- Cordelia. He was keeping secrets from her, and her she was, the only one who seemed to care about him in this world._ Buffy used to care. Before- ugh. Before all of this. How pathetic is it that Cordelia is the only one who even cares if I ever come home again or not?_ With a bitter sigh, Angle dialed Giles' number. If anyone in Sunnydale would know the status of the Initiative pullback, it would be him. He was after all, the Watcher. He _saw_ things.

* * *

><p>Giles frowned and walked to the phone as it rang, nose deep in <em>Fairytales and Myths- the Fact or Fiction? <em>trying to find out how to get their voices back. Buffy, Spike, and Joyce were reading the actual tale itself, Anya and Xander were making a supply run and Willow and Tara were typing frantically back and forth on Willow's laptop, a spell book shared on their touching knees. "Hello?" Giles lifted the receiver.

Then put it heavily to his chest. _Oh yes. Brilliant. How do you use a phone without speaking? _He turned his eyes to his guests and expected to see some mirth from Spike, but everyone was nodding and giving him sad, half-smiles of empathy.

"Giles? Giles, it's Angel. Are you there? Giles?" Angel's voice was tinny but insistent.

Giles stared helplessly at the phone and back at the ceiling.

"Who is it?" Joyce mouthed.

"Angel." He replied grimly in the same fashion, and hastily took a step back as Buffy and Spike rose as one. He held up a cautioning hand and jerked his head at Joyce. She rose as well and tried to tug her "children" back to a sitting position. I could get used to having some back up on the sensible front, Giles smiled slightly and then turned his attention back to the increasingly frantic sounding brunette on the line.

"Are you okay? Are you there!"

Giles pushed down a key and it beeped.

Angel paused. "Giles?"

Another beep.

"Are you okay?"

Beep.

"Why can't you talk? Are you in trouble?"

_Like bloody Lassie and bloody Timmy_, Spike thought and moodily reached for a smoke that he no longer had or truly wanted.

_Who? _Buffy gave him a curious look.

_Explain it all later, Poppet. _

Giles paused and then pushed twice.

"Two for no?"

One beep.

"Once for yes, two for no. Okay, you're in trouble. Is it Buffy?"

Giles considered. It was the whole town. And he didn't want Angel here again, not at all, he'd barely gotten rid of him the last time. "Beep. Beep."

"Should I come down?"

"BEEEEEEP BEEEEEEP." Giles glared at the figure he couldn't see face to face but could feel preparing to encroach where he was unneeded.

"No need to shout! Geez." Angel held the phone away from his ear. "Are the army guys involved in this - thing?" Angel whispered, pressing the other phone, the one Fremont was on, harder into his chest.

Giles paused again. Partially, possibly? He pressed the button down three times.

"Maybe? Three is maybe, got it." Angel felt panic rising in him. Why couldn't the man speak? Was someone holding him prisoner? It seemed to be the season for hostage taking. Was he ill? Was he injured? "Why can't you talk?"

Spike, with his acute hearing, could hear the whole exchange and he rose from his seat again, preparing to leave a series of scalding pitches in the pillock's ear. _Who the buggerin' hell asks a man who can't speak to tell him why!_

Giles had a similar feeling of exasperation and banged the receiver smartly against the wall.

"Right. Dumb question. Just- yes or no questions." Angel paused. "Are you in danger?" He asked slowly and clearly.

Giles looked at Spike and Buffy, who stared back at him. Buffy shrugged helplessly and pointed to the headlines still spread on the table. Joyce gestured to the sketches in the book, a skeletal troop of men in long cloaks, processing through the streets in a storybook village.

"Beep." Giles gently replaced the receiver. There was nothing more to say.

* * *

><p>Angel clutched the phone for a second before shutting it. His breathing, such as it was, was coming in hard pants. <em>She's in danger and they don't even want me there. I can't even hear her voice, I can't even hear his. Something is wrong.<em>

"Fremont?" His voice was guttural.

"Yes, still here." Fremont blurted.

"You can't have her."

"What?" A bellow of rage. From the wooden chair where Walsh sat, there was a shriek of maddened despair.

"I just checked in on your boys. They've been busy in the last day." Angel didn't know the whole story, but he was willing to bet there was some military involvement.

"They've been preparing shut down procedures, they've-"

"My friends are in their territory and they're in danger. Something happened between yesterday and today, now what what was it?" The vampire frostily demanded.

DuVal slapped his palm to his forehead in recollection. "Sir! The laryngitis quarantine! Andrews emailed us."

"Just an unusual strain of laryngitis." Fremont placated. "Not generated by us, our men and women are equally affected, I assure you."

"Are you joking? _Laryngitis_?"

Fremont paused. "I admit, it's unheard of. But lots of things are unheard of in that- town." He was careful not to mention names, more than he already had.

Angel felt the receiver casing crunch in his hand as he pressed it hard to his ear, unable to take out his rage on the problem itself. "Listen to me. My friends couldn't speak, but they let me know they were in danger. In danger. Now- if they're in danger, what kind of position do you think that puts you in?" His voice was silky in its darkness, the latent evil spiking as he threatened.

"Be reasonable, we can't control an outbreak of-"

"Reasonable? Reasonable! I'm a vampire who's older than this country. I've lost the only things I care about- about a dozen times. I'm not reasonable. I- might- never-" he advanced on Maggie slowly, a catlike gleam in his eye as he spotted the most hated rat, and yanked her out of the chair and slammed her into the wall, letting her scream of pain fill the room, "-ever be reasonable again."

"Listen to me, Angel, we just need to ascertain-" Fremont babbled, stalled and panicked at the same time, something he was getting to be very good at.

"I'll go down there myself and 'ascertain'. I'll reassign every single man you have to an 'eternal commission' and then I'll finish Walsh, whatever's left of her-and then I'll be coming for you."

"We do not respond to threats." Fremont growled, a cold sheen of sweat soaking his brow in spite of his words.

Angel chuckled coldly. "Sure you do. But let's not call it a threat. Let's call it a 'dead' line, emphasis on dead. You have one day."

"One day to-"

"One day." Angel slammed the phone down and slammed Maggie back into the chair. He pounded on the outside door that opened to reveal a nonplussed looking demon guard.

"Angelus?"

Angel didn't bother to correct him. He wasn't sure he _should_ correct him at this point. "She stays alive, in that slightly more comfortable cell. And feed her something! Her blood needs thickening." He licked his lips.

"Uh. Yes, Sir. Um. The head warden asked how long we should plan on keeping her here?"

Angel met Maggie's suddenly very human eyes, and felt the humanity drip right out of him, face shifting, eyes yellowing. "Just one more day. Either way. One more day. Enjoy it, Mags." He slipped through the doorway, an almost jaunty spring in his step. "Spend your last day alive in a tiny little cell, wondering what's about to happen, how long it'll take- feeling your mind shatter into tiny little pieces..." He paused and leaned forward as she was hauled past him, bringing his demonic face close to her pale one. He snapped his teeth shut hard, right against, but not on, her ear, giving her a final hissing whisper, "Payback's a bitch, isn't it, Mags?"

_To be continued..._


	24. Chapter 24

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Note: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Author's Second Note: Thank you for waiting so patiently, yet again. I've been juggling stories. Again. Let's just assume I will always be juggling stories from now on, until forever, lol._

_Author's Third Note: You have to imagine the episode "Hush" as we go into this chapter and the next, and imagine trying to write all that- with no visual aids. You know I like challenge, so bear with me and here we go._

_Dedicated to DLillith21, ginar369, Lil-Leti, Lynbie, MMWillow, Sweet-T3, trashyfiction, Fanficfemale,McPastey, Waddiwasiwitch,omslagspapper, cavemenftw, medusamylove, Spikeluv4, brittanyr1221,lisape,Inazea, suchagleekx, Redeclipedtwilight,RagnarBlackmane, Lithium Reaper, Little Missy123, evelynfergusons, The Three March Hares, Cailin Rua, Rosalea12, alexiarrose, cosmiclove, Sirius 120, and MaireAilbhe, _

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously not mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part XXIV

_Washington, D.C. _

"Alright, alright, let's stay calm. We can do this." Fremont paced.

"With all do respect, Sir- do what? How are we supposed to control this outbreak or ascertain its cause? We can't get to the base because of the quarantine!" DuVal pointed out. "There are channels we can use to get in- but the risks of exposing ourselves to it-"

"We can't get that kind of emergency access without explaining our reasons or having a plausible cover story. And that ain't gonna happen within one day's time." He shook his head in frustration. "Well, if we can't get in, neither can he." Fremont realized.

"But he's a vampire. They can do things we can't. Can't they?"

"Some, DuVal, but not get around a military checkpoint enforced quarantine. Unless he's already there, but underground, in hiding, and he hadn't realized the epidemic had broken out when he called us." Fremont stopped his pacing and ran his hands through his hair with an agitated groan. "I know vampires can't catch laryngitis, but this isn't a normal strain. Maybe it's mystical. Even demonic. Dammit, Andrews has already disposed of all the HSTs they had, or we could've asked him if the vampires were still able to speak. Then we'd have an inkling to whether he was inside the town or not."

"Well, not necessarily, Sir, because- oh wait! No, they can't be in town because we talked to Walsh, and even if vampires are immune, humans aren't. We heard her voice"

"So he's not in town. But he will be. He probably can get around the checkpoints, just being one creature with a prisoner he can move quickly and not attract a lot of attention. The quarantine will only have posts on all the surrounding roads. He'll probably come up through the sewers or sneak in through those cliffs, maybe even by the beaches. Who knows with demons?" Fremont suddenly launched into his desk chair and began typing furiously. "All I do know is that vampires won't be traveling long distances in the sunlight. Andrews needs to stop burning daylight and get some answers..."

_Los Angeles, CA_

"You're going to start looking like the toast your cheap toaster makes, coming in around noon." Cordelia said acerbically.

Angel jumped. "What are you doing here?" He pulled his head from the fridge, whirling to face the figure that was sitting in the darkened recesses of his living room.

"I work here."

"Not in my apartment!"

"No, but when your boss never shows up to work anymore and acts crazy- even for him- you make house calls." Cordelia stepped forward, clutching her handbag tightly. It clinked woodenly as she moved.

"You're carrying stakes? In my living room?" Angel looked wounded.

"Always. And crosses. Today I tossed in a little holy water, too." Cordelia said brightly and pushed past him. "You're not evil, though. Evil Angel doesn't ask questions and look surprised, evil Angel asks questions in the sicko creepy he kills you."

Don't be so sure, Angel winced and turned to follow her. "Cordelia, listen, get out of here, okay?"

"No." She said simply, squeezing into the space he'd just vacated, reaching past him and into his fridge. She put a container of blood into the microwave.

"It's- it's not a good time." Angel protested.

"No, 'not a good time' is getting left in a city that is just teeming with whackos with no one but Wesley, the 'rogue demon hunter', to help me deal with freaked out people who keep calling for our help!" She slammed the microwave door shut with a bang and put her hands on her hips. "You have no idea-"

"No, _you _have no idea!" Angel pushed her back to the counter of suddenly, hands rough on her shoulders, eyes burning, demon clamoring to rip loose. "You just need to give me a couple days, and I'll be back, ready to take care of everyone else's problems. But no, you're here, under my feet, in my way, because-"

"Because I'm your friend. And you're hurting me." She whispered, voice shaking, her hand fumbling for the clasp of her bag.

Angel dropped his hands like they were singed. "I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to them to hurt her." Buffy's face, vacant and confused flashed in front of his eyes, rapidly replaced by the confused look Cordelia wore. He swallowed. "Cordy, you have to stay out of this, you have to let me take care of this thing."

"This Buffy thing? The thing with her memory?"

"Yeah." He said one word, but it was an effort to speak, the single syllable seemed to fall leadenly from pale lips.

The microwave beeped and made them both jump. Angel looked up. The person, the only person who wanted him around, who told him he was still capable of doing good, who'd given him his purpose again, was white and shaking, worried or scared, or both, but still not backing away from him.

"What are you doing? Where are you going?" She whispered. "How does it help her?"

"You don't need to know. Believe me, you'll be happier if you stay out of this." He was shaken back to reality by her questions_. I'm doing something that's crossing the line. I don't care anymore. It's for Buffy. But- I do care about Cordy. She's all I have. Thanks to Walsh. _She's_ the one who crossed the line, I'm just walking over it to get to her._

"I'm sure I'd be way happier! I'd be happier if a handsome doctor swept me off my feet, gave me a credit card with no limit, and dropped me off on Rodeo. It's not happening, though. I'm not staying out of it."

"You are so stubborn." He sighed in an undertone, shaking his head. "Just like she was. Is. Not that she remembers she was stubborn, it's just- ingrained or something." He got the blood from the microwave and poured it into one of his simple, anonymous black mugs.

"Buffy comparisons piss me off." Cordelia followed him as he took his blood into the living room, trying to escape her inquiries. "But I'm sorry she doesn't remember you, Angel. I know it hurts. But- give the girl a break, okay? You broke her heart and killed a bunch of our classmates, stalked her family and friends, died, came back, then told her you were leaving her. Man, maybe it's a good thing for her to take a little amnesia trip."

Angel winced internally. "If she wanted to forget about me, fine. She had no choice, Cordy. Someone, some mad woman, some sick, twisted _bitch _reached into her brain with a little electric device and_ killed_ her entire world." Angel's voice rose as he spoke, intensifying, shaking. "They got others. Lots of others, and if I don't hold the trump card, they'd keep doing it. Without me, the ones running this experiment would still be sitting around, making lots more empty people."

"Probably why you hate her so much, huh?" Cordelia's hand went into her bag for this statement. He was about to get royally pissed off. "She took away the only person you loved and who loved you- and she reminds you of yourself, right? Wiping out all those innocent lives, only she doesn't kill them. But she's doing what you did."

The cup whizzed past her head and shattered on the wall, the odor of warm bovine blood making her faintly ill as she let out a gasp and ducked. In the dark, two angry flames burst into life.

"You should leave now." The voice addressing her was lower, growling. Animal. Angelus?

Hand fastened around a cross, she shook her head."Not until you tell me what you're doing. I looked at the car's mileage thingy. You're gone for half the day sometimes, you're out when it's daylight, and there's like a thousand miles been put on the car in a week. I don't know what's going on, but I'm afraid you're going to end up in the vampire burn unit."

"You- you checked my odometer?" The yellow eyes blinked in surprise.

"No, just the milage." She protested.

Oh, man. So her. A single laugh escaped, and the eyes no longer glowed. "The odometer _is_ the milage reader."

"It is? Wow, now I know a car word. But that's beside the point. Are you driving out to Sunnydale everyday?"

"Sunnydale? No!" Angel denied. "Not that I shouldn't be there, they have a crisis, they need my help- but _Spike's_ the new boyfriend,_ Spike'll_ handle it." He said bitterly.

"_Buffy_ will handle it. You said she still knows how to fight. Are you turning this thing into some kind of boyfriend contest? Because it should really be a saving people and doing your path to redemption and/or Chosen One duty contest. She'll handle Sunnydale, you handle LA. Did I mention the whacko factor at work here? And the Wesley hanging around here and driving me nuts factor?"

He let out an angry, impatient hiss. "Fine, sure. I'll take care of this city as best I can- but I have to take care of Walsh first."

"Walsh? She's the brain suck chick, right?" Cordelia's brows drew together. "What do you mean by take care of her? Where is she?" She suddenly looked around in panic. "Oh my God. Angel, what are you doing? Is she down here? Is she like- hidden in the closet or something?"

"No, no, calm down." Angel walked to her slowly. She was freaking out. Because of him. His soul gave him a burning reminder. _You'll become what terrifies her. You'll lose yourself. No, don't tell me you already have lost yourself, you know it's never too late to fight what you are, fight what you've become, what you're becoming._ " She's safe. I just- Cordy please just stay out-"

"Never gonna happen. Keep talking." Cordelia swallowed and met him halfway, walking slowly to him as he walked to her. "Are you saying 'take care of' in a hit man way?"

"Not- not -" His hesitancy gave way to an explanatory rush. Only Cordelia had this effect on him, geez. "Not exactly, although- yes, there are definite- not so nice parts to what I did. I'm not going to kill her. Unless I have to. But I took her out of Sunnydale. She's safe where she is, but she can't hurt anyone where she is. Satisfied?"

"So not. What'd you do? Is there some kind of sleep away camp for psychopaths you sent her to?" She demanded skeptically.

"Camp's such a loose fitting word-"

"Angel!"

"She's getting fed, she's warm and dry, and she's not in any danger." _Now that's she's playing ball. She'll probably never use her hand again, but hey- losing a hand instead of your life seems like a bargain to me._

"You kidnapped her." Cordelia gaped at him, "and now you drive out to some godforsaken shack in the who knows where and feed her and let her go to the bathroom like she's a dog you let out?"

"No! Well, yes to the kidnapping, but she's - look, she's under supervision all the time, I'm not leaving her in some abandoned hole to die." _Since she's cooperating. And since I'm not leaving her there, either way. _"I just needed her to be out of the way until a deal was made with the people running the program that's doing these horrible experiments, Cordelia. In twenty four hours she'll get handed over to military officials and she'll stand trial." _Or I'll kill her as a message if they don't fix whatever "outbreak" they're claiming to have. Or if Buffy's hurt or Giles says the danger isn't over. So she's probably going to die. I didn't want it to be that way. Sometimes you have no choice._

"Stand trial? So justice gets served?" Cordelia said suspiciously, but she felt some relief stirring inside her frightened heart. Angel nodded. "Good. Because that's a hard choice to make."

"Huh?" He started guiltily. "Choice, what choice?"

"Whether you're trying to get justice or revenge. I'm sorry I doubted you."

Guilt flooded him, but it was an emotion he was familiar with by now. What he wasn't familiar with was the sudden movement, the hesitant darting- as her lips pecked his cheek. His hand flew to his skin like he'd been slapped. Maybe he had. Slapped awake. "What was that for?"

"It was part of the apology, dumbass. I'm sorry I doubted you. But you were acting really shady. And the kidnapping- well- that's _very_ shady, but if there was ever an extenuating circumstance, I guess it's this one."

"Yes. I mean- I'm sorry I worried you."

"I'll come with you to drop her off at wherever these military people are meeting you. If you want. Moral support. " She offered.

"It's fine. I have to do this myself." _You can't see that I already got some revenge, not nearly enough, but a little taste- still so sweet. But if I take all the revenge I want- there'll be nothing left for justice to serve._ _Although, all I'm doing is giving her back what she did to others. Is that justice? _"Am I a righteous man?" He murmured to himself, something he'd often asked, contemplating

whether or not his death would serve this world better than his continued existence in it.

"Righteous is a stretch, but you've got the black on black look down so I'd say you're cool moving slowly towards righteous. By the way, total seventies word. Now- if you'd let me dress you-"

"Cordelia."

"I'm joking. Not about the clothes though." She patted his arm softly, quickly. "You may have to work at it, Angel- but I've seen you do things, noble things, kind things, that put others first. I think it's cause you're totally in love with the self-pain and brooding- but that's only part of what makes it easier for you to do your job. I think it's harder for you than it is for most people, but the things you do- they're what scare most people away. Yeah. You're a righteous man."

He hadn't thought he could feel like this again. Not in love, but loved. Even in the most basic, platonic way, in a hint of admiration, admiration for his goodness, something he'd thought only Buffy could give him.

It was a lie though. "I've done things. Things I'm not proud of, but that I can't change, that I wouldn't change." The hate of Maggie Walsh was seared into him. She killed the final shreds of a love he'd lived and died for. She deserved pain, death, torture. But he was holding out for justice.

"You keep trying though, right? To make it work, to serve good." Cordelia tossed her hair. "I'm hardly Miss Charity. I screw up on this force for good thing all the time. It's just- so not me. With the tearing and the staining and the lack of viable funds- icky."

"You are an amazing person, Cordelia Chase." Angel found himself smiling again. How'd she do that? Make him smile, even laugh, when the darkness was hanging over him?

"I had a good teacher." She returned the smile, letting go of his arm and pushing past him again. "Don't screw up."

"Are you leaving?" Angel suddenly didn't want to be alone. Doyle had been right. He needed people, he needed the humanizing influence, it helped fight the dark impulses left inside him, always inside him.

"I'm turning on lights and getting paper towels. And carpet cleaner. You owe me an apology, by the way. Throwing blood at your Gal Friday is beyond rude."

"I'm sorry." He went to the side where the mug lay shattered, blood dripping down the wall_. I'm sorry for so many things. Sorry for what I did- and what'll I'll do... _He pushed the demon down firmly. He'd make good his promises. He'd still kill if they didn't come through, didn't take away the labs, stop the experiments. There was a choice, yes, always a choice. Sometimes you made a bad one- if you knew you'd force something good out of it. "I'm sorry." He repeated, eyes downcast, closing, apologizing for sins he was adding to an already strained soul. _I'm sorry._ _But that won't stop me..._

_Sunnydale, CA_

"Everything for giving back voices requires someone to speak the incantation to the silenced one." Willow typed these words on the laptop and turned it to face the huddled figures on the floor and couch.

Xander snapped his fingers excitedly and dashed words off across the large sheet of packing paper that was spread across the coffee table, already liberally written on. "Angel! Giles, call him back, have him read the incantation."

Anya grabbed his pen with an eye roll. "How does he know the incantation?"

Tara raised her hand timidly. Willow touched her arm and nodded, handing her back the computer. "Email?" Her milky fingers typed.

Everyone stared at each other and all shrugged or shook their heads. Giles sighed silently and used his bold red pen to write, "I doubt he has email. Even if he did, none of us have the information. Most magic needs direct contact to work anyway." He patted Xander's shoulder comfortingly, mouthing "Good suggestion."

Spike reached over to Willow and gestured with his fingers for the book, giving her an impatient gesture before grabbing it and rifling through the pages she'd marked to one of the incantations she referred to.

Buffy suddenly sat upright, eyes intent. She looked at Spike and they exchanged a hopeful shrug.

_Silent voices be unsilenced, closed mouths be opened, speech be freed._ Spike's voice entered Buffy's head as clearly as if he'd been whispering in her ear. Speaking was relative, right? Claimed couples maybe had an exemption.

Buffy opened her mouth and let out a shout- of nothing. _Didn't work. Obviously. _She smiled sadly at her lover, then turned her empty hands up to the room at large, as if to say , "Sorry, nothing."

Joyce looked around gravely. She'd expected Giles or Buffy to have at least some plan formed by now. This is what they did! It had always been that way, by the time Joyce identified the threat, Buffy was dashing away to deal with it. Now it had been hours of reading through books and looking through scrolls. _They must have worked so hard, for so many hours- and I never even knew it._ "You'll find a way. I have faith in you, Honey." Joyce wrote in small letters directly in front of Buffy's legs where she sat on the couch.

Buffy smiled, really looking at the woman beside her. An image was suddenly superimposed over the tired face she saw, an old memory resurfacing. Similar words spoken by her mother, but years ago, as she helped a little girl tie on her ice skates. "Mom." Buffy mouthed and swallowed. She shook her head to clear it and squeezed her hand instead of launching into an emotional hug. Work to do first. Memories wouldn't mean anything if no one got to enjoy them.

Giles thumped a book closed and raked one hand through his hair, taking a brief pacing break before coming back to the table. He knelt down with a determined look on his face and pushed all the books and papers to the floor. His red pen marked the paper , "Let's get this in perspective!"

Everyone had to squeeze in to see, kneeling or leaning over one another.

"Write bigger." Anya's pen requested.

"There's not a lot of space left on this paper." Willow frowned and wrote underneath.

"But we're wasting time because we all have to squish in to see!" Anya's pen strokes were long and exasperated, matching the expression she wore.

"This argument is wasting time _and_ paper." Joyce underlined the word "and", then pushed both of the young women's hands from the paper and nodded at Giles to continue.

He smiled warmly at her, quite derailed from his original comments._ It's so lovely to have another adult around... A second voice of reason. A helpful, kind-_

Spike kicked the coffee table with one booted foot, making everyone jump. He raised his eyebrows pointedly and jerked his head to the paper.

Giles blushed and cleared his throat, though no one but him was aware of that. He wrote, in slightly larger print, "Who are the Gentlemen?"

Willow's hand shot up and she typed like lightening. "Monsters from a fairytale!"

Giles nodded and was about to continue when Willow's keys began to click again. "Want to use the laptop? It'll save space and you can adjust the font! Oooh- we can make a powerpoint!"

Seven incredulous faces stared at her. "What? It's a good idea!" Willow typed, a defensive look on her face.

Xander grabbed a whiteboard from where it lay on the floor and wrote just two words, followed by many questions marks. "Seriously? _Giles_?" He underlined the Watcher's name with a flourish of scorn.

Giles cast a long suffering look at the ceiling as the two best friends began a battle of words.

Suddenly Spike rose from the couch, meteorically, vamping, roaring without noise. He was mouthing words furiously, expression livid and monstrous, enough to make Joyce cower and reach for her daughter protectively, enough to make Tara scuttle backwards.

Buffy remained calm and reached over, gently shutting Willow's laptop and stealing Xander's marker. "He says get on with it." She wrote on the second whiteboard and showed it around, a small, amused smile on her face. Spike sat back down beside her with a huff, nodding, face human once more.

For once we agree, thought Giles, and he resumed writing. "Fairytale creatures, yes. What do they want?"

Willow's hand was up, and instead of typing- not wishing to set Spike off again- she patted her heart.

Xander eyed the women in the room- their chests specifically, before he made a motion and cupped the front of his chest. "Boobies?" Everyone glared.

"Hearts. They have three." Giles gestured to the headlines of the morning's paper.

Buffy held up seven fingers, lips thinned and eyes anxious. "Four more to go." She mouthed.

"Exactly." Giles wrote the next items in a quick list, "They come to a town. Steal voices so no one can scream. Screaming destroys them. Get seven hearts." He paused ominously. "The silence is permanent if they get seven."

"Then they don't get seven." Spike took Buffy's hand determinedly after he made his statement on paper. Buffy nodded, equally fierce, her hands tightening on his. They exchanged a look, a little lightening seemed to jump from him to her. They were sharing the same thoughts.

_Sexy beast. Spike_

_ Slayer. Wildcat._

Joyce nudged her daughter's foot with a blushing cough. In love or not, making out was inappropriate just now.

Buffy came to her senses, stopped leaning towards her future groom, and mimed something jabbing in and out of her hand.

Willow and Tara looked shocked, borderline uncomfortable. Xander, Giles, and Joyce looked disconcerted to say the least. Anya shrugged and gestured to the loft.

_Staking? _Spike's amused voice penetrated Buffy's mind.

_Yeah. Duh._

_Precious, sometimes when we begin, when you can't wait to get your hands on me..._

Buffy's cheeks glowed and she reached hurriedly around the back of the sofa, mouthing "No, no, no!" She emerged with a stake and made one decisive thrust down. "Kill them _first_."

"Ahhhh." Relieved looks were exchanged. Spike and Anya merely smirked to one another.

Giles shook his head at his slayer regretfully and propped open the fairytale of _The Silent Kingdom_ they'd been reading, the original description of the monsters. He flipped a few pages then tapped a paragraph.

"No sword can kill them."

"Damn." Xander swatted at the table in frustration.

"The Princess screamed once, and they all died." Giles pointed to another section of the story.

Willow tore open her laptop, pressed a few keys and a wailing scream from a Halloween soundbite shot through the room, making everyone sit up straight in surprise.

But nothing changed.

Giles handed Joyce the book to hold as he wrote, "It must be an actual human voice, apparently."

"And incantations can't be done." Willow typed mournfully.

Tara raised her hand bashfully, as if a student in school.

Giles blinked. Such a refreshing change. He beamed and nodded to her.

Willow passed her the laptop and Tara quickly asked, "It says they stole the voices. Actually stole them?"

Giles considered as all eyes turned to him. He finally nodded, though not absolutely certain. But it did make sense. Many objects used by demons and otherworldly powers had the ability to hold intangible items. The voices could have been literally removed and held someplace else. He was about to begin explaining that when Buffy tugged excitedly on Spike's arm.

T_he box! The box the little girl is holding when she sings the song! She's singing the song about how you can't cry out and you can't scream- and she's holding the box! It has to be the box where the stolen voices are kept!_

Giles felt like laughing. Buffy'd have no recollection of it, but he'd seen that excited, confident gleam and smile before, the blaze of certainty on her face. _Thank God. The plan begins to form._

"In my slayer dream! There's a box. The girl sings about the silence and stolen voices while holding a box! I think the voices are in the box!" Buffy wrote so fast it was nearly illegible, Spike nodding along behind her. With his access to her mind, he could see the dream retelling itself, felt sure she was correct.

Giles snatched the book of fairytales from Xander's hands as he was leafing through it and turned to the original woodcut illustration. Sure enough, one figure held something small and square, just barely visible under the long dark cloak. He tapped it and patted Buffy's back heartily, almost bouncing as her idea seemed to be confirmed.

After a moment of general glee and relief, Joyce turned hopeful eyes to her child. "Where is the box, Buffy?" She mouthed.

Jubilation faded rapidly. Buffy looked at Spike helplessly. "I don't know." She shook her head.

Willow pulled the laptop to the coffee table from Tara's lap and beamed. "That's where technology and I come in!" She typed. "Giles- get me those maps of Sunnydale. Anya- newspapers."

There was a flurry of activity as Giles left and Xander moved with him to go hunt down maps of the city and surrounding areas, and Anya passed over the newspaper.

Spike and Tara seemed to know what Willow had in mind, but Joyce and Buffy exchanged a confused look. Buffy tapped Willow on the shoulder.

"Hacking into the police and coroner database to get addresses." Willow wrote hurriedly on the white board while keeping her computer windows full of the highly classified websites.

"Why?"

"Three victims after dark, in one night. Find out where they're hiding, they can't be in too many places, have to be close to all the attacks."

_Then we'll go give 'em hell, Luv._ Spike grinned at his lover with a vicious hint in his eyes.

_Yeah. If they don't give us hell first. _Buffy shivered.

As Willow typed, everyone hovered around her, watching the expert hacker at work, getting grim details the papers hadn't reported, names, addresses, images.

Buffy was shaken. She'd seen death before, lots of it. None of it was fresh, all of it was cloudy, coming back to her in snippets. These images seemed to hasten back the flood of things she'd seen, dead bodies, blood soaked clothes, torn throats...

_Poppet? Sweetheart? _Spike felt her hand grip his to the point where his super strong bones complained.

_I hate them._ Her internal voice was bitter and whispery. _We have to stop them. They take voices. They take lives._

Like someone took ours, Spike thought, but didn't say. A knife or a needle, no matter, all the sudden, someone's world vanishes, leaves lives empty. _We'll stop them. You always do._

She smiled shakily._ Then they'll be going down tonight. If I always win- with you- it should be easy. Well, almost easy._

_We're survivors, Slayer. We'd have been fine, made our way in the world with no help, nothin' but love an' fightin' spirit. We'll do this. We'll do this, hard, or easy, but it'll be done. _He pulled her shoulders under his arm, felt comforted himself as her head rested on his chest._ Me an' my girl. Can do anything, can't we, Luv?_

Unaware of the silent conversation between the betrothed couple, Willow and Giles worked feverishly. Soon they'd plotted points on the map of the center of Sunnydale, a skewed triangular shape ranging from a residential area, the college, and a retirement home near the hospital.

Anya shook her head. "That's miles." She held up a whiteboard. "And I mean perimeter, not area!"

Giles nodded, worried. If these silent monsters had managed to get three hearts in one night, they only had tonight probably before the silence became final and absolute. Irreversible in their present state. "If we had something of theirs we could scry for them. That's how we found where you two were after the Initiative's attack." Giles explained on the other whiteboard.

Tara patted Willow's arm, sparks of magic jumping when her fingers touched her bare wrist. Both of the young witches jumped and locked eyes.

Anya flipped over the edge of the map and pointed between the two wiccas with the eraser end of her pencil before suggesting, "There are spells to find for high levels of mystical activity, aren't there?"

Giles shook his head and pointed to his throat. The spells he knew of had to be spoken.

Anya shook her head and pointed to her temple before scribing again, "Some are simply the right herbs and candles but need the mental discipline and magic of a real witch. We've got two."

Tara nodded, eyes widening. She held up one of the books she'd looked through earlier, turned the pages carefully, intently, then held it out to Mr. Giles, index finger tapping the ingredient list.

His eyes lit hopefully. He had all the simple ingredients at hand. Magically speaking, merely trying to ascertain a vague nexus of mystical energy wasn't deeply difficult.

Xander peered over his shoulder and trotted off to the kitchen. Spike began pushing the coffee table off to the side, making an area for the spell to be performed.

Willow and Tara consulted the spell book and pulled the map between them, linking hands over it as soon as the ingredients were ready.

Look out, Evil, Willow thought, her palms pressing to Tara's, you're about to get hacked...

* * *

><p>Andrews closed the sites the laboratory techs had hacked into. With Initiative clearances closing on military orders, it had taken even longer to find out what they needed to know. But, a few boys who were good with firewalls and codes and a little push from the apoplectic Fremont back in Washington, and Andrews at least had a plan. He had Smith and Finn sitting in front of him, the type-to-talk program speaking electronically for him.<p>

"Searching the local hospitals didn't turn up anything about the laryngitis scare and neither have the medicos. But we have something I think might be related. Three deaths. Hearts removed from the body. All in one night. Sound demonic?"

Finn reached across the desk, turning the keyboard with his superior's permission. "Sounds like a serial killer."

"No one saw anything. And it can't be a coincidence, with this city wide silence. It can't be one human, Finn, even taking advantage of silence, he'd only have a few hours to work and these addresses aren't right next to one another. Plus, no sign of forced entry."

Smith held out her hands to type and Andrews pushed the keyboard to her. "We can send search teams to canvass the areas after nightfall."

"Exactly what we need to do. We need to stop this- and hope the silence stops as well."

Finn detected something furtive and constricted in Andrews' face, although his pseudo voice remained clipped and tight as electronics conveyed no emotions. "Is there any new information about the outbreak?" He typed when Andrews was done.

"No. But if it lasts for more than 24 hours, we're going to have a situation here."

Smith and Finn exchanged a glance. "Sir?" Smith mouthed.

"Just find the bastards and take them down. You two are the best representatives of your respective squads. You're paired up tonight. I've had them triangulate the killer's preferred area. It's about a three mile perimeter. I want you here-" he pulled up a map with a neon green triangle superimposed over it, and tapped the middle, "dead center."

* * *

><p>Giles stabbed his red marker down where the ball of blue light had been centered. He held up the map quickly and all of them peered at it, trying to pinpoint or recognize the exact area.<p>

"That's on the north side. Near the old municipal building." Willow, exhausted but proud, typed once more.

"By the clock tower." Joyce realized.

Xander clapped his hands together briskly. "Searching time?" He mouthed.

Giles shook his head, and gestured to himself, Buffy, and Spike. He was countermanded by Buffy's small but strong hand on his wrist, eyes wide, head frantically shaking.

Spike put his arm around her waist and pulled her to his side as they stepped forward, a gesture that meant, "Just the two of us."

It was Giles turn to shake his head urgently. "You're not fully healed." He spoke silently, mouth close to Buffy's face, eyes full of paternal worry.

"I can't let you go." Buffy did the same thing, words formed slowly and deliberately.

Willow tugged her arm and pointed to all of them. "We always help!"

Buffy sighed and dropped back to her knees, finding one of the few remaining blank spaces on the paper. "I know you all want to help. But I can't let you get hurt. Stay together, stay here, it's out of the war zone. Protect each other."

Shaking heads and grappled for pens erupted, everyone in silent protest, scribbling, jostling to explain. Buffy pressed on, tears suddenly glistening in her eyes, her letters large and bold, desperate. "Please. I can't lose all of you. Again."

Her words made a new kind of stillness. Joyce turned abruptly, head bowed, shoulders hunching in a sob. Giles stepped over to her, awkwardly patting her back, looking at the young warrior on her knees, her chosen crusader standing beside her, Spike's usually arrogant smirk replaced by a set jaw. Giles looked helplessly around, hating the loss of his voice more than anything right now. How many words he needed to pour out, to entreat.

It was Xander, the one who sometimes seemed so oddly eloquent, who went down on his knees alongside her and gently took the pen from her hand, writing one message from all of them. "We can't lose you either. We're just finding you again. Or for the first time." He looked to Spike, to Tara, even to Joyce and Willow. Things were new between all of them, but they weren't bad.

Buffy leaned forward and hugged the brunette hard. "I'm right here. And I'm coming back. I'm _coming back_." She mouthed as she pulled back. "Take care of each other. Need you all here waiting for me. For us." She rose, taking Spike's hand.

The silence stretched, transformed, hugs exchanged, nervous glances. Tara felt like an outsider, an intruder- until she realized Willow was clinging to her hand for dear life. Suddenly she was in the middle as much as any of them. She'd always been alone- and now she'd been swept into a crisis. But everyone wanted her there. What incredible people. She licked her lips and tapped Willow's arm, getting her attention.

"Protection spells? Wards? For the house?"

Willow nodded eagerly. It was something they could do to help, make them feel like they were involved.

Meanwhile, Spike had stepped to the curtain and peeked out. The sun was sinking. They'd been working non stop for hours. They were hungry, they were stressed. They were going to beat the living hell out of whatever had given his girl nightmares.

"As soon as it's dark, we'll take my car. I can get there an' back. Good with maps." Spike wrote on the back of the map after he was done folding it up.

* * *

><p>"Finn, Smith. Take the black armored SUV. Head out now. Maybe find their place before it gets dark." Andrews issued his final orders. "I'll brief the rest, you're on point." They saluted and left his presence. Andrews tried not to worry. They were soldiers. This was just another night at work.<p>

* * *

><p><em> Dammit. I was s'posed to start work tonight.<em> Spike realized and shot the thought to his future wife.

_Willy won't mind. Not if I have anything to say about it. _She smiled._ He might be closed. Hard to get drink orders when no one can talk._

_ True, true. An' if we stop the beasties, I'll have a damn good excuse, hey, Luv?_

_ Yep. And it'll be fine. _Buffy touched her engagement necklace, and the bite just beside it. _We _have_ to be fine. We have a wedding to plan._

_ We can do this. We can do anything. You an' me, we're brave enough to try. An' what'd I say? _Spike winked at her.

She could hear his voice, in the dream, in her head now, beautifully, eerily overlaid. _"Fortune favors the brave."_

_To be continued..._


	25. Chapter 25

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Note: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Author's Second Note: You have to imagine the episode "Hush" at the beginning of this chapter and imagine trying to write all that- with no visual aids. You know I like challenge, so bear with me and here we go._

_Author's Third Note: Battle scenes are not my area of expertise, but I do try. Sex scenes are my thing (so I've been told and so I like to believe) and there is a sexual scene in here, which includes vampiric elements._

_Dedicated to DLillith21, ginar369, cavemenftw, The Three March Hares, and alexiarrose. I seem to have a lot of my following, so I send an extra heartfelt dedication to you brave readers and reviewers who are still fighting along with me. _

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously not mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part XXV

Darkness falls.

Two figures, blonde, holding hands as they slip into a battered black car, turn once to wave at the six figures huddled silent on steps behind them.

Two figures, suited in black, heavily armed, use hand motions to order other small groups into positions, into vehicles. With a half smile they regard one another and slide into the lead car.

Four figures, in crisp black suits, flanked by huddling, hunched creatures, nod demurely to one another, crisp, small inclinations of bald, veined, grotesque heads. They move with practiced motions in a long standing ritual, every gesture silent, smiling precision. Black doctors' bags open, glittering scalpels are held up to the light that penetrates through the clock tower's illuminated face. Three glass jars with viscous red contents are examined. They offer each other a round of polite applause on viewing the three preserved hearts. The eldest and most venerable of the Gentleman (though how that was determined was known only to the others, not outsiders) holds up four bony fingers.

The others hold up four fingers in silent rejoinder, grim smiles widening. As if in a courtly processional, the Gentleman and their monstrous servants glide down the stairwell of the clock tower and out to the shadowed streets.

* * *

><p><em> Patrol is a bitch when you can't talk to your partner. <em>Riley had to stay right beside Sam- not that he minded_ that_ in the least, but they were severely cutting down on the scope of the territory they were supposed to be investigating. _Not only that_- he gently reached out and did a quick double tap on her shoulder, and ducked automatically as she swung to face him, fists up- _but there are other dangerous side effects. _Her hands dropped immediately when she realized it was merely her current partner. _Yeah, after the next five times, maybe we'll be able to stop attacking each other. _Eyes meeting in the dark, Riley used his arm to motion her that they should move ahead, down to the left. Sam nodded once and followed his lead.

Riley led them in ever narrowing circles, now on foot as the streets emptied. The paranoid population- or possibly _not_ so paranoid population- was staying close to home, probably locked in doors. Thank God. He hoped certain groups of people in particular had the good sense to stay off the street.

* * *

><p><em> Turn down this street. Gotta be here, in the next couple blocks. <em>Spike's voice was insistent in Buffy's mind. His swagger was that of a hunting wolf, fast, bent forward, senses reaching out. His coat billowed behind him as his silent footfalls sped up. He found a second to marvel at the small of stature woman he was with. He could barely keep up with her. _Beautiful, delicate angel, lethal, stalking huntress. _

Buffy turned and flashed him a quick grin. Even in perilous times, he appreciated her. He had just thought, so loudly, so clearly,_ "I am so in love with her." _

_ Bask in his affection later. Kill the baddies first. End the plague of silence thingy. Or the wedding is going to be really weird... _Beside her, Spike chuckled at her thoughts and took her hand.

Buffy reached out with her senses, feeling, somehow, that Spike's extrasensory abilities were hers now. She knew, from Giles and from her reading, from her crash course of "re-training", that she had unusual sensory abilities of her own, but she felt like these current sensations were double strength. _We're getting closer. Feel... more and more uneasy, the closer we get._

_ Me, too. _He frowned. He had a familiar feeling, the feeling of evil around him. He supposed he'd been around lots of the dark forces in a hundred odd years of demonhood. But this felt fresh, if still instinctive. But that was the problem with living in vampire central, he supposed. There was always that curious prickling of the under dwellers lurking about, because they always were.

* * *

><p>Smith made a frustrated noise- at least in her own head- and shook the tracking device Finn had given her. She held it out and Riley looked over at it. Little surges of HST energy readings flashed all over the screen, no concrete markers, everything vague.<p>

He shrugged apologetically, not having the time to sit down and write out an explanation. He would have to explain when they got back, if they made it back- that the graphs always read like this. Welcome to a Hellmouth. The town itself gave off a low level buzz of energy that triggered the HST readings. What they were looking for was a sudden spike.

* * *

><p>Spike felt himself tugged almost off his feet and down behind a bench and a bush. He looked at Buffy in surprise and felt his dry cool lips get dryer and paler as he followed her gaze.<em> What the bloody fuck are <em>those_?_

_ Wow. The dream said gentlemen- and they sorta are. I just didn't expect them to have moved with the times. _Buffy's hand went to her stake even though she knew it would be useless against the two figures she saw. Black suited, tall, thin men. No, not men. Not like any men she'd ever seen, except for a glimpse in her nightmare.

_Satan's undertakers._ Spike's lips curled in violent distaste. _Ditched the robes an' started buyin' off the rack. Although God only knows _what _rack..._

_ Yeah. They sure do have the creepy undertaker look happening. _

_ Comin' out of the clock tower. _Spike nudged her with his elbow and gestured with his chin.

_Uh-huh. Coming right at us. _Buffy's fingers gripped his arm convulsively as the figures walked- no glided- o_h man, add bonus creeped out points-_ from the tower's edge and suddenly paused. Black eyes, like pools of dead ink met hers and her skin froze.

Spike was the one tugging her back this time. His girl seemed petrified. She'd seen true evil before, but this was on a different level, this was horrific and staring her in the face afresh. Cold. Clinically pleased evil. The smile- it wasn't a violent smile, a deranged smile, it was skeletal smile that just seemed to crack wider and wider, its face, covered in grayish-white skin, seemed to split and show blackness underneath. Eyes like wells of soulless evil, smile like a skull's, death mocking you from a living form.

Like death itself. Silence. Stealing your voice, locking you in silence, then stealing the heart, the core of life itself.

_Move, move, move! _No more time for contemplation. He shook Buffy's arm in his grip and pulled her after him. Spike realized those damned things moved faster than he thought. They blended into the silence, there were no footsteps, just silent figures passing through still air.

_ We're supposed to fight them! _Buffy protested, running anyway. _But I'm okay with running. The first rule of slaying is don't die. Who told me that?_

_ You probably said it yourself, Luv, an' pick up your feet. We gotta smash the box!_

_ The box is the other way! They came from the tower, Spike, and the box is probably in there._

_ Circlin' round. Just hope we don't run into more of them._

_ Did you see those little pink creepy things with them?_

_ Trying not to. _Spike thought grimly, tossing a glance over his shoulder. _I think we gave 'em the-_

Buffy's scream pierced the inside of his head but made no sound outside. They'd rounded the corner of the block where the clock tower stood and smack into two more of the Gentlemen and two of their lackeys, hobbling, swaying creatures who reached to tackle the vampire and slayer. Spike spun them again, a tactical retreat off the block, away from the two groups that were surrounding them.

_We can't keep running from these things! I'm the slayer, I stand and fight when no one else will!_ Buffy's sense of duty resurrected more fully than it had since the loss of her memories. Running away once fine, but to keep running... No.

_Fight with what? _Spike felt a flash of old dislike and annoyance rising in him. _You got a sharp piece of wood to take on at least eight inhuman beasts, Slayer! It won't kill 'em. The only thing that will kill 'em is your pretty little voice!_

_So we have to get to the box._ Buffy stopped on a dime, secretly impressed with her own reflexes now that they were put to the test. She spun and ran like a gazelle, evading the arms of the scrabbling lackeys, leaping through the rapidly narrowing divide between the two sets of Gentlemen. _You love to chase me! You've been after me since the second you saw me, one way or another! C'mon, Spike, I need you!_

Goddamn plucky little thing... _Follow you to the ends of the earth, too! _He grit his teeth and charged. Two of the Gentleman and their henchmen had taken after Buffy, leaving two to confront him.

Spike's shoulder slammed into a block of frail but unyielding flesh that smelled of rotting skin and ancient fabric. The creature's hands moved slowly but somehow were around his throat almost at once. Adrenaline surged through his veins at previously unexperienced levels. Nostrils flared, lips curved sinisterly. _Oh. Oh yes. This feeling, kill or be killed. The brawl. The battle. The rush!_His vampire face emerged and his hands locked around the forearm of his assailant.

The air became a black blur, but Spike found himself no longer being attacked, he was now the attacker, the pursuer. The Gentleman who'd latched onto him seemed to rapidly lose interest.

_Ahh. Don't want the vampire's heart, do you? Need to steal the life of the livin', this old heart won't do, no matter how alive it is, how burstin' with love and lust...Well good. Gotta get to my girl. _He pushed past the now disinterested figure before him, flying towards the door in the side of the tower building.

* * *

><p>Riley jerked his head towards a building to the south of them, as Samantha did as well. Sounds of fighting, scuffling. Even without shouts and screams usually associated with fighting, the noise stood out, attracted their attention. The old clock tower at the edge of the park was the site of the brawl.<p>

Samantha held out her tracking device, watching sharp lines cross its surface. She jammed it back into her belt, looked to Finn and ran.

_Girl's got the drive. I like that._ Riley raced after her, sure of HST activity now, that conclusion confirmed the closer he got. There were deformed humanesque beings wobbling quickly towards them, wrapped in what looked like bandages. Just behind them drifted spectral forms, something between a human and corpse and -oh._ Shit._

Spike.

_Spike. The vampire. With his vampire face. The vampire I spared! Working with them! _Had they fooled him, duped him, all of them all along? Riley's rifle was in his hands and he was passing Sam, running with unbridled fury.

Smith followed his lead, her keen eyes locking onto his primary objective. The vampire. She didn't think vampires could cause this level of widespread silence or illness, but HSTs were Finn's forte, not hers. If Finn's target was the vampire, it was hers too.

Riley's rage was mounting, hand already pressing the catch that turned the muzzle of his rifle to its secondary function. The trigger would eject a stake now. He took aim, pausing to bring the weapon to his eye, adjust the scope.

_Whoa. _Whoa._ He's got moves. He's got speed..._ Riley's admiration was sullied by the hatred reborn in him. _He's moving around them- he's- what _is_ he doing?_ Riley lowered his gun as Spike hurled one of the black clad figures to the side and tore the head free from one of the scuttling figures beside it. _He's on our side? Well, they did say he was helping Buffy, not hurting her. Buffy! Oh, God, Buffy! If Spike is fighting these things, Buffy must be too!_

Spike wrenched open the side entrance door and was through it before Riley could even put the weapon down completely. The vampire wasn't aware of the soldiers' presence, he was hyper focused on one thing.

Buffy. In trouble. Diving into the fray because it was in her blood. Because she knew it was what she did. Because she knew she had an amazing group of friends who had her back. And now he was it. _Jus' you an' me, Slayer. Alright, Luv, we'll give 'em hell. That's the plan. _He mounted the stairs three at a time, feeling his mate's pain and fear and unfaltering determination to win, no matter what the odds.

* * *

><p>Buffy thought she was braver. She hadn't thought feeling death wrapping around her would scare her to the point of puking or peeing her pants. <em>How the heck did I do this before? <em>

A hint of silver against her chest reminded her. The point of a scalpel pressed her jacket. She could feel icy air on her neck, feel flesh creaking as the Gentleman who held her grinned more broadly. He was going to kill her if she didn't keep fighting. That's why she was brave. If you were a coward- you died.

A splintering crash from the stairwell diverted the attention of both the slayer and her attacker.

_Spike! Riley Finn? Who's ordering the cavalry around here? And who's soldier girl? Am I supposed to know her?_

_FOCUS!_ Spike's hands clawed at the back of the figure constraining her.

_Oh! Right, get the box. The box! Where's the box? _Buffy managed to push the scalpel from the creature's hand, but still couldn't break free. But his grip was weakening, Spike had him on the ropes. If they could just break the box it'd end so much quicker!

"Buffy! Buffy!" Riley's face flashed in front of her. The butt of his rifle was crashing onto skulls of the grotesque henchmen. "Buffy!" His jaws moved, screaming in silence. He looked like he could rip someone apart with his bare hands, so much frustration in him. He needed to get to her, help save her- and there were too many bodies between them.

Buffy waved frantically and pointed behind him. As he'd grabbed her attention she'd seen what they needed. There was a small table, set on the platforms among all the clockworks and wheels. Three glass jars, full of their sickening contents, and a small, ornately carved box with a tiny brass lock resided on the table.

Riley turned. The hearts. The hearts, these monsters took the hearts, they were the killers. He whirled back to face Buffy, looking not just at her, but behind her. Smith was locked in battle with one of the corpse-like men, and Spike still grappling with the one who held Buffy. Buffy herself was still pointing and gesturing, thumping one fist against the empty air.

_ Hit something. Hit something behind me?_ The jars! Riley darted a look over his shoulder, then kicked over the table.

Glass shattered. Clear fluid and red organs adorned the floor.

All the Gentlemen moved as one. Hands to heads, fluttering in despair. Their henchmen rocked back and forth in grief for a night's work, half of the enchantment, destroyed.

Buffy and Spike used the short lull and distraction to break free. Sam used it to get a clear shot, finally, after several tortured moments of realizing she couldn't get the vampire without striking the girl, who was definitely human.

_Nothing happened!_ Buffy looked around frantically.

_The jars broke, shattered. The box is stronger. Where the hell'd it go?_ Spike looked around frantically.

_On the ledge!_

Buffy pointed and Spike dove, knowing that as soon the Gents figured out their secret stash was endangered, they'd be using all their efforts to reclaim the box. _Not much time!_

_Not much time! _Sam readjusted, tracking the vampire with her sights, swinging with him.

Spike barely managed to grab the box from the clutches of one of the funereal types. With a silent roar, he swung it out of reach, above his head, and down, hard, splintering it on the floor.

Spirals of green light poured from the box, thousands of them, all flying free, emancipated voices seeking their owners.

Buffy inhaled as a green dot of light soared towards her, ingesting it and feeling the curious emptiness in her throat magically dissipating.

Spike smiled at her across the room, watching her draw in air. _The princess is about to scream, boys. _His smile turned from relieved to smug as the nightmarish creatures started backing away, cowering.

Only one figure was moving forward.

Buffy saw her first, Spike a close second, Riley last. Sam was practically on top of Spike.

With a grunt Spike whirled, kicking her in the knees, Riley lunged at the brunette and seized her elbow, skewing her shot, and Buffy let loose a desperate, howling wail.

"NO! _Spiiike_!"

"Sam, no!" Riley cried.

Then all noise was blotted out by the explosion. The massive splatter of a dozen figures suddenly combusting from the head down, insides erupting green goo in sickening fountains.

Silence reasserted itself, except for the gentle "Plop. Plop. Plop." of villain remains dripping from the eaves.

"You okay?" Spike skated across the pool of slime to his beloved, helping her off her knees.

"Yes, if you're okay." She wrapped her arms protectively around him, hands in his hair- green streaked though it was. "Your chip-"

_Shh. Didn't fire when I kicked her. Wonder if my brain is healin' so much that it's disabled the shockers? Or maybe Slayer blood cures anything ailin' a vampire. Whatever it is, don't tell soldier and soldierette. _Aloud, Spike replied, "I'm fine. Just fine, Slayer."

"Not for long! Finn, get off of me before I report you as a sympathizer!" Smith was struggling against the larger man, but to no avail. The green goo made everything slippery, and they were merely tousling, gaining and losing grip on each other.

"Gotta go!" Buffy locked her hand around Spike's and urged him to flee. "Bye! Thanks!" With a perky (if freaked out)wave, the blondes clattered and slid down the stairs and out into the night.

* * *

><p>Sam shook herself free finally, with a hostile glare at Finn. "How dare you-"<p>

"They're in love and they're getting married. They just saved the city. Let them go." Riley's voice was faintly pleading.

"He's a _vampire_! I saw his face. He's- he's not _human_! And now that I think about it- that girl, the way she was fighting, she couldn't be -"

"She's human. She's nothing like we are, but she still loves him, and he still loves her. He's the exception to vampires and she's the exception to humans, okay?"

"But- mfff!" Sam's protest was cut off completely by Riley's mouth crushing hers, sealing her words off completely. After an initial second of indignation and shock, she relaxed, letting his hands tangle with hers, weapons dropped. Disarmed in multiple ways.

_Well, here's where I get tasered. Or slapped in the face. _Riley lingeringly withdrew his lips from hers. "I've been wanting to do that since we got in here. You look so amazing when you fight, do you know that?" Might as well say what was on his mind, since she was probably going to punch him out anyway.

"I- uh- thanks. You, too." Sam lost her anger when she saw such simple sincerity in his wide eyes, open face.

Riley looked uncomfortable and swallowed with a shrug. "So- now I've got my voice back- wanna help me fill out some reports and then listen to me talk about how awesome I think you are, Agent Smith?"

Sam smiled hesitantly. "It _is_ good to hear your voice. It's good to hear _any_ voice. But those two-" She looked at the carnage around her, and the two sets of footprints that cut a path through the mess and disappeared down the stairs.

Riley shook his head with a trace of impatience. "Listen. Sometimes you have to be willing to see things a little differently, take emotions into account. Or you end up like Maggie Walsh trying to program everything out of a person, erasing people's lives to rewrite them in some perfect way. Life isn't perfect. For one thing- it's messy." He wiped a splatter from her olive-toned cheek. "Emotions change a lot of things." He murmured, letting his thumb remove another splatter, doing it slowly, gently.

Sam sized up the man before her, taking into account not just what she saw in the past day or so, but what she'd heard, read, researched on him as part of this mission. "Well, everyone says I'm a good judge of character Finn. You seem like good people. If you say we can trust them, then- I'll listen."

Riley nodded. _No, I wouldn't trust them. Not exactly. But yeah, they're "good people". If we use the term "people" pretty loosely... _"Let's get out of here. We have units to assign to clean up and catalogue. Andrews needs a call too."

* * *

><p>"I should call him. Or he'll be up here. Heaven only knows we don't need are just getting back to normalcy."<p>

"Then can we call other people? Totally random people? I forgot it feels so good to talk, I think I could do it all night!" Xander and Anya laughed and cuddled as they leaned on the back of the couch.

"You can call people on your own phone. Later." Giles said firmly, but he was smiling. "Now- he gave me his number, but-"

"Here." Willow motioned for the phone. "You can call back the last number that called you. It was Angel, right?" Giles nodded and surrendered the phone. He let Willow push some numbers and then took it from her hand.

"It's ringing." He hissed.

* * *

><p>Angel jumped in his chair at the sudden ringing emanating from his hip. That was unfortunate, as he'd been sitting back in his desk chair, feet propped on the top. At the jangling noise he yelped, threw his feet down, and fell from the chair with a thud. He scrambled to open the phone, silently thanking God that Cordelia wasn't there to witness the spectacular failing of his vampiric reflexes. "Hello!" He demanded frantically.<p>

"Angel. Yes, it's Giles."

"You can talk!"

"Yes, all of us can."

Joyce gestured to Giles' television which Xander had just turned on. "They'll lift the quarantine in twelve hours." She pointed to the words scrolling under the broadcaster's face.

"In twelve hours the quarantine status will be lifted, but all of us are fine now. I believe the danger has passed."

"That particular danger." Angel muttered grimly. "The other danger- any word on that?"

"The soldiers are still patrolling. At least they were last night. We received word from a friend on the inside of the operation to stay indoors last night."

"Lying bastards..." Angel growled.

"Pardon?"

"They told me-" Angel belatedly sealed his lips.

"They told you? _You're _talking to them?" Giles turned his back on the living room and hunched himself close to the wall, talking in a dogged whisper. "You have the professor, don't you? The one who hurt Buffy." Silence greeted him. "No good denying it now! They're looking for her, they thought Buffy and Spike had killed her or taken her. Do you ever think about how your actions play out? One step beyond the next step!" Giles tore his glasses from his face in his agitation and lay his forehead to the wall.

"I'm bringing her back. They'll _get_ her back. When the soldiers are gone."

Giles paused, pressed his lips together and counted to five before speaking again. He felt a hand on his back. Joyce's. He was sure of it. He reached round and squeezed her hand once, before returning his attention to Angel. "How exactly do you plan to orchestrate this?"

Angel paused as well. Hm. He hadn't had the entire thing planned out, just a goal. Get them to leave, make them stop, never hurt Buffy again. His threats were the bulk of his enforcement. "They know me. They know it's either stop, or she'll never come back. And if they don't have her to stand trial- no one takes the fall. If there's one thing the higher ups want, it's a scapegoat, and I've got the only believable one."

Giles considered. "I suppose that's true enough. But what's to stop them lying to you? These people are experts at covering their tracks and true natures! This woman was Buffy's college professor, after all! Right in the open, well known, carrying out these monstrous experiments at the same time, a double life!"

"If I find out they lied- I come back and make them wish they hadn't." Angel's voice was deadly, brittle.

"And in the time _before_ you come back to punish them?" Giles rubbed his eyes. How could a being old enough to have been his great great grandfather's great grandfather seem so short sighted and immature at times?

"That doesn't happen. Because you have a man on the inside, right? Can you trust him?"

"I- hold on, let me ask Willow about this." Giles turned to beckon her over, only to draw up short. Joyce, Willow, Xander, and Anya were about six inches behind him. Only Tara hung back. "Oh honestly, " he sighed, "this is space for one person, not five. Back up a bit, no, Willow, not you." Giles pressed the phone to his chest and spoke to the redhead. "Willow- do you think Riley Finn is reachable?"

"Well- his campus email still worked last night. I guess he's still available. Why?"

"How trustworthy is he, do you think?"

"I think- about this? About the Initiative stuff? He wants it to stop." She lowered her voice to a tense whisper. "He's the one who agreed to help. He's protected Buffy and Spike, no one's come hunting them or us down. More than usual, I mean."

"Right, then. Angel?" Giles placed the phone back to his ear. "We believe our source is sufficiently trustworthy, and Willow can get in touch with him."

"Hi Angel!"

"Hi Willow!" The brooding vampire managed to crack a slight smile at the sound of the perky voice. "Uh- right. Look, ask him what the military's doing. Ask him if they had anything to do with this outbreak, then ask if these guys are withdrawing or closing shop, whatever. Are they _stopping this_."

Giles was momentarily put off by the flint in Angel's voice, the tone reminded him enough of Angelus' deep, dark viciousness to make him swallow and drop the phone from his ear to his jaw. "Yes. I will ask those questions. Or rather, Willow will formulate the questions and get the answers to you as soon as we can."

"Does he have email?" Anya demanded.

"Shh!" Joyce hushed her

"Not a good time, Sweetie. Angel's in demanding answers mode." Xander shook his head. "I can feel the Cro-Magnon forehead wrinkling from here..."

"And to the first part of your inquiries, Angel- the outbreak was caused by a malevolent force, the uh- fairytale specters from _The Silent Kingdom._ Do you know of them?"

"Not really." Angel blinked. "But it definitely wasn't something to do with Walsh and her goons?"

"Assuredly not."

"Then ask about the other stuff and let me know." Angel prepared to hang up, and then stopped. "Is she there? Can I talk to her?"

"No. She's- getting cleaned up." Giles lied easily, despite the second's hesitation.

"I want to hear her voice. I want to hear she's okay. From her."

"Then I'll tell her you asked her to call you back. But she isn't yours, Angel. Nor mine, not in a way that lets me demand things of her. I cannot _make_ her call you back."

"It's just a phone call." Angel was stung by the truth of the words. Damn the Watcher. But he had been right, he himself had said that Giles "saw things". Giles saw right through him...

"Then why does it matter so much?" Giles' voice became as dangerous as his conversation partner's. "Because you think that when she heals, she'll be yours again? You've already said you won't allow yourself to be loved by her, the way she wants, with a home together and a life together. God knows Spike is a terribly unhealthy choice in terms of suitability for an eighteen year old girl, but he loves her enough to stand by her side- through the good, and the bad. What is the point in a life spent together only when you're too miserable to enjoy it? She is getting a second chance. A second chance from all of us, and you turned that opportunity down by trying to cram her back into the old mold. Our Buffy is inside, but she's changing to fit a new life, something no slayer has ever been offered. Buffy is no longer bound to you, Angel, the past has lost its hold- and so have you. She belongs to no one but herself." Giles hadn't realized what a tirade he'd launched into. And before an audience, dear Lord! He harrumphed once and then murmured. "She'll call back if she so chooses. If I hear anything pertinent about her health and well being- I'll let you know." He hung up, and avoided turning around.

Silence seemed to have reasserted itself. Giles left the living room, heading towards his kitchen, still not looking behind him at his crowded apartment.

A slow clapping broke the stillness. One steady clap, then a second pair of hands joining in. "Yeah, G-Man! You tell him!" Xander cheered.

"You were all- masterful and manly. Your voice dropped into a different register. It was- wow." Anya gave the librarian an appraising stare.

But it was Joyce who herded him along, into the kitchen and relative safety. She who started pouring the tea that had been stewing off and on all evening, and then went rummaging for something stronger. "Thank you, Rupert."

"For becoming very theatrical over the simple request for a phone call?"

"For becoming very clear that Buffy will make her own choices. Ex boyfriends and mothers need those kinds of reminders." She smiled ruefully and located a bottle of brandy tucked away behind the cooking wine.

"Well. It needed saying." Giles colored in a pleased way, and dared to look at Joyce, catching her smile.

* * *

><p>In the living room, Tara's dimpled smile seemed to play hide and seek, fleeting across her face every few seconds.<p>

"I'm sorry. Really, really sorry to drag you into crazytown." Willow sat beside her, laptop pulled to her chest. "Y-you probably want to go home, huh? Where it's safe?"

"No!" Tara shook her head frantically as she blurted. "I feel- really s-safe here. With all of you." She let her eyes linger just a shade too long on Willow's, and found her heartbeat speeding up when Willow didn't look away.

"I know you told Angel Buffy was safe- but do you really think she is?" Joyce helped herself to a small snifter.

"I'm positive. I can feel it." Giles drank deeply and sighed as the warmth soothed his overtaxed nerves. "Honestly, Joyce. I know how Buffy moves, and it's too soon to be concerned, plus she had a partner with her who has unparalleled interest in keeping her happy and healthy. She's fine. I truly believe it." _She's been claimed. She is nearly invulnerable, especially if her "mate" is in close proximity, one's strength feeds the other. But I can't tell Joyce that. I don't think she can handle that. _I_ can barely handle that._

"Really? That's something." Joyce paced the tiny kitchen and bit her thumb. "Why isn't she back yet?"

"Not to put too fine a point on it, but there's often a -a post battle clean up." He coughed. Joyce looked ill at the thought.

"You mean- cleaning up the monster bodies?"

"Sometimes." He tried to smile, but it came out as a grimace.

Joyce looked disgusted, then determined, striding from the kitchen. "Well, what if she's hurt? What if she- what if she's disoriented, she barely knows the insides of the house where she's lived for four years, how is she supposed to navigate this town in the dark if she's disoriented? I think I should go check the house and see if she's there."

"We're supposed to wait here. Buffy knows Giles' apartment really well, too, and Spike knows it way better than your house." Willow spoke up as Joyce entered the living room. "She knows we're safe here, and they'll be coming back here, because they know we're waiting for them."

"Yes. Don't leave." Anya entreated, wide eyed and earnest. "Now that our voices are working, we were thinking of ordering pizza. Using the phone!"

"Because it just works so much better when you can talk on it." Xander laughed as he put his arm around Anya's waist.

"Oh." Joyce bit her lip. She wasn't used to this kind of "active waiting".

Anya smiled knowingly, but then replaced it with a bright, eager look. Knowing Spike, and this more uninhibited Buffy, she imagined they were just fine. Fabulous, in fact. But definitely not going to be walking through the door for a little while. "Just wait here. Buffy'd want to know you were safe, and this is the safest place to be! As soon as they clean up, they'll be here, I just know it."

* * *

><p>"Don't make a mess." Buffy panted between kisses.<p>

"Mm-mm." Spike shook his head, and kicked the door shut behind him. His hands clutched her waist, her legs wrapped around his, and he carried her, backwards, up the stairs.

"Shoes!"

"Sod 'em!"

"My mom's carpet!"

"Bloody hell." Spike dropped his faintly slimed boots on the steps and felt hers kick off behind him.

"Hot water. Hot, hot water." Buffy gasped out, pulling her jacket off, falling backwards. Spike set her on the floor of the bathroom and proceeded to shuck his own clothes off as well. They tugged and tore, frantically disrobing.

"You want the slime off you that bad?" Spike smirked as she ripped the seam of her jeans yanking the zipper down.

"Want _you _that bad. Unless monster guts are some kind of aphrodisiac."

"Fighting is our aphrodisiac." Spike chuckled and surveyed her. Green streaks at the ends of her hair, some above her hairline. But nowhere else. The rest was on her clothing. Which was on the floor. "You look so amazing in nothing." He purred.

"You look better with a little something on you." She slid close to him, noticing afresh how her coppery honey skin contrasted with his ice white complexion.

"And you're that little something, aren't you?"

"Guessed it." She winked and let him restart the frenzy they'd begun in the car on the way back to Giles'.

Hugging because they were so relieved, rushing away, because of that horrible woman who was with Agent Finn. Fear, relief, adrenaline flying... one stoplight and they were all over each other. "Can't go to Giles' lookin' like this, Luv. Frighten your poor mother." Spike had suggested.

"I know. That would be- terrible. Just horribly unkind, she's dealing with so much right now." Buffy had giggled and was delighted that Spike had managed to orient himself on the darkened streets, and they had headed for her mother's instead of to Giles'.

Which brought them back to the reality of hot water and far too much body wash, creating a tidal wave of slickness.

Steam did it to him. It carried her sweat and her scent in a mixture of gaseous, liquid, and solid forms. Coated him. Snared him. Trapped him. She was life and heat, sex and blood. His wife to be. His mate already.

It was the water that did it to her. Pounded all over her naked flesh like the power of her own superhuman pulse. It unlocked some want in her, that the Slayer needed sex, needed to kill, to fight, to have magic dance in her.

She had flashes again. Flashes of other faces, just two others, tender smiles, whispers and murmurs. No heat. Sex was slow and steady and cautious. It was warm. Not hot.

Now sex was cold in form. She felt his cool hands slamming to her hips as he embraced her, held himself to her, necks pressed together. "I love you." He rasped out, tongue gliding upstream against her racing pulse, the opposite of the course of the water trailing down between her breasts, over her flat stomach, to nestle between her spreading thighs. His actions were just like him. He was against the tide, against nature. He was the storm. Cold front with the fire she needed.

Sex was nothing. Before him.

"Take me. Love me. Make me."

His eyes burst into flames in the semi-darkness. Make her. A challenge. He couldn't resist a challenge, not from anyone, but never from her. "Make you mine." He growled.

"Yessss." A long drawn out hiss. That was exactly what she wanted. Magic dancing inside her... Him inside her.

It was a haze, blood red, all senses cloaked by her. The haze became a regular old London fog when she kissed him, when she melted against him, going limp, his to ravish. The smell of sex slammed into him, and he lost some part of his control.

Or gained an old memory. Dark, ethereal face, eyes like coals, claws like a cat's, ripping gouges down his chest and across her own, small round breasts bleeding against his muscular torso. _"Like newborns, Sweet William, covered in love's blood. Drink me. Be born again in me..."_ A hauntingly familiar voice his damaged mind told him he'd never even heard.

The bite was hard this time, and it jolted her, left electricity running down her spine. It moved too, once hard, at her claim, and then they were tangling, him against her back, rigidness inside, and the bite sinking into the soft flesh between neck and shoulder as he took her from behind. "Mine!"

"Yours. Yours." She agreed.

The vampiric face vanished as if someone had ripped off a plastic mask. _Oh God. Buffy. Not the other one, not a demon, an angel. A hellcat, but not from hell. _"Did I hurt you? God, I just wanted you so much, wanted to taste you..."

"No, I'm not hurt! Just surprised." She craned her neck around, and looked up at him, his crimson lips, his scared expression. "Were you afraid you bit too hard?"

"Yeah." He tried to explain, though it came out haltingly. "I - sometimes- flashes come back, not that I'm thinkin' of anything or anyone but you, Poppet." The gentle term. He was possessed by her, but her was in love with her.

"It's okay. I think we're healing faster, Spike." She rolled slightly, her torso on its side, hips still in parallel union with his. "I see bits of old lives too." Her hand cupped his cheek, and thumb stroked the ruby lip, tucking the precious symbol of his survival back into his mouth.

"She was a vampire." Spike shrugged. She'd know that of course.

"Well. I'm a Slayer." Buffy raised one eyebrow. "I'm better than her."

Spike grinned. "Of course, Luv."

"I mean it. I'm stronger. Stronger than her, Spike. And you're more alive than they were, these faces from the past, humans or vamps. You're- _my_ life. My _alive_. When I'm with you, I can be scared of everything and anything, but I am never scared of_ you_."

"I knew there was a reason I loved you. Another one. On top of the other thousands." He bent to kiss her, and reclaim her. They twisted this time, together, now face to face, drowning each other in lustful kisses, the tempo that had fallen off increasing once again.

Hips to hips, hard enough to feel bones meet. Hands locked above her head, so his mouth rested on her bite and he could still whisper to her, a hundred deep, dark, secrets about how she was his, body and soul, in a million lovely ways, a million sinful ones. And the biggest secret of all- she owned him right back.

Which she proved, hands suddenly tightening on his, gaining leverage, pushing them into a complete one eighty, putting her on top.

Spike looked up at her with dreamy eyes, watching her take over, loving the feeling of being swept away. "When I look up at you, I see heaven, and I see storms, Slayer. All that soft beauty. All that celestial fury jus' waiting to unleash."

"And when I look down I see someone I can unleash it with. Who can catch me. Who I never have to control myself with." The pounding of her swollen sex to his filling member sped up, harder and harder, her head fighting to both look into his eyes, and rear back. She let out a choked half sob as a thousand bits of images assailed her. Images of controlling herself, of fitting the mold, being normal, denying herself. So indistinct, but such a strong impression. "I love you, Spike... Glad you're here with me in this new world. New freedom."

"No one'll ever lock either of us up again." He clasped her hands as they dug into his chest and watched her unraveling around him, shaking hard. _That's my girl. My girl is back an' better than ever. She's coming home. And so am I. _ "Love you, Slayer. Buffy." The words were rushing now, trying to beat it out ahead of the roar that reverberated the tile as he exploded inside her.

She collapsed, shaking against his chest, and felt him pulsing under her. "Whoa."

"Do you get like this after every major battle?" Spike asked, wide eyed, possibly paralyzed, or at least fused to the tub.

"I didn't before. I didn't have someone to let this out with, but this is what I need. And you can bet, now that I have you around, that this a post big bad ritual."

"I keep findin' more reasons to love livin' on a Hellmouth." Spike quipped in a shaky laugh. He cupped the back of her head and tilted her face to his. "No one will keep you locked up in a little box anymore, Pet. no one steals your voice again, not even you. The world is gonna be yours, at least if I can give it to you."

"I have all I want, if I have you. No one cages you, either. You just be who you are, and I'll be happy being with you." She kissed him with a blush. The Slayer side was sated, and sinking back into her, waiting to be called to battle again. Now the normal girl couldn't believe she'd just gone into extreme sex siren mode. But it didn't matter. She was with the only person in the world she was allowed to be one hundred percent uninhibited with, no explanations or exceptions needed.

Buffy sat up with renewed confidence. Spike lay there, tongue dancing over his lips in a thoroughly pleased smirk. "There." She said with a satisfied huff, ruffling his hair and sharing his smile. "Clean now."

_To be continued..._


	26. Chapter 26

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Note: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Author's Second Note: Mushy scene ahead._

_Dedicated to DLillith21, ginar369, cavemenftw, The Three March Hares, Lil-Let, and alexiarrose. I seem to have lost a lot of my following, so I send an extra heartfelt dedication to you brave readers and reviewers who are still fighting along with me. Thank you also to the kind anonymous reviewers, whether you are new readers, or old ones who forgot to log in!_

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously not mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part XXVI

"We should go, they're probably worried." Buffy finished toweling herself dry and went looking for clean clothes. "So awesome not living out of a bag." She sighed.

"Says you." Spike was donning one of his few black shirts and the other pair of jeans he owned, things he'd found in the trunk of the car.

"We'll go shopping with your first paycheck." Buffy hugged him from behind, large eyes looking up at him with a mixture of love an sympathy.

"If I still have the job, it must be well past, oi!" He glanced at her bedside alarm. "We made short work of them, Luv, it's only nine! I bet he's opened up, the little snitch is nothing if not profiteering, and this town is probably celebrating." Spike finished buckling his belt and frowned. "Hm. Memories of the sniveling little git are coming back. Not sure if that's a good thing."

"I know what you mean." Buffy shook her head. "I wish there was- a menu or something for this. 'Yes, please let me have all the happy memories revolving around ice cream, shopping, and holidays, hold the monsters and death.'." Spike chuckled, but nodded.

"I'll drop you off at Giles' an' you can celebrate, make yourself a new memory, Luv."

"Where are you going?" Buffy blinked in surprise.

"To see if Willy minds if I take the night off an' start tomorrow."

"I'll come with you!" Buffy stopped buttoning up a pretty pink top and reached into the closet to pull out a black, asymmetrical pice. She held it in front of her. "I'm your muscle, remember?" She fluttered her lashes.

Spike licked his lips. "Don't get me started about your muscles, Sweet Thing." He brushed a kiss across her cheek and left their bedroom, heading downstairs, collecting their shoes and coats on the way.

"I'm coming with you! Walking out doesn't win an argument, Hot Shot."

"Ooh, new name. Like it. An' I'm not arguin', would love you with me, but know your mum must be scared to death."

"Everyone's talking again. She'll know everything's fine." Buffy shrugged. She had mixed emotions about having her mother involved in this. Memories tugged, telling her that her mom stayed in the background, that her primary "go to"s were Willow and Xander. Sometimes Giles. Lastly her mom. And now? Everyone was secondary except her partner, her mate, future husband, and he was right there with her._ Am I better to myself, worse to them, or both?_ She shrugged again. "She'll know we're okay."

"She knows we beat the bastards. But she doesn't know at what cost." Spike shook his coat out over the front porch railing, but bits of green stringy stuff left their residue. "She might think you an' I died defeating them."

"Yeah. Happened to me once before." Buffy winced and looked at her boots, then went back upstairs to find a different pair. "We'll call and tell them we're fine. Then go to Willy's."

"You know Giles' number?"

"It's on that piece of paper he gave us, it's in the glove compartment. Or my bag." Buffy paused in thought at the bottom of the stairs, and Spike leaned against the door, now shut behind him. He sighed. "Want me to go look in the car, you look in that suitcase you call a purse?"

Buffy rolled her eyes and caught sight of the portable left on the edge of the coffee table. "Hang on." She walked determinedly to the phone, picked it up, and held it for a second.

"Your mum probably has his number on the the fridge, Luv, he_ is _your-" He stopped speaking abruptly as both of Buffy's thumbs began darting over the keys. She held the phone to her ear with an apprehensive look. "Slayer, what-"

"Hullo?" Giles sounded faintly out of breath, and very English. Sure signs of stress.

"Hi." Buffy sounded mildly surprised, looking at the phone cautiously. " Hi. Giles?"

"Yes. It's Buffy, everyone!"

She could hear eager voices behind him, and she smiled, but her mind was racing along, not listening to the chorus of relief on the other end of the line. _I knew the number. No, I didn't know, I remembered it- at least my hands did. They didn't before, but now- things are becoming- automatic. Like this._ Buffy patted her waistband, a stake tucked inside. She'd done it without thinking about it. Instinct. She felt her damp hair, some of it held in place with bobby pins. Bobby pins, third drawer, next to the rubber bands. _Not in plain sight, and I didn't even care about how I looked as long as I was okay- and tonight I just grabbed them and put them in. I'm getting better._

"Where are you? Are you both alright?" Giles asked after shooing everyone else back a few paces and getting some relative quiet, nodding to Joyce, who was first in line to take the phone.

"We're fine. We got slimed though. That fairytale needs one more sentence. 'The princess screamed and the quiet guys of silence- or whatever it was- were no more-because they blew up and splattered green goo everywhere."

"Like a pustula demon, only these blow from the heads down." Spike laughed, then frowned. "Where the hell have I seen those? What the hell _are _thos_e_?" Buffy gave him a sympathetic look. She knew exactly what it was like to recall things that made no sense out of context.

"This slime- no ill effects from contact with it?"

"Nope. Except for the dry cleaning bill. Ooh, can we send that to Travers? Or would he just deduct it from our paychecks?" Buffy asked brightly.

Giles smiled broadly. His slayer, through and through. Making light after it was done, finishing the job with unshakeable determination despite her fears. And sticking it to Travers. Yes, his slayer, always. "I'll call and ask him. The main thing is you're not hurt."

"Nope. Just messy. We stopped to take a shower and get non-gutty clothes. We have to run by Willy's and then we'll be back."

"Of course, Spike's job. He's very- conscientious." He couldn't keep a note of incredulity from his voice.

Spike rested his cheek to Buffy's and spoke into the receiver."Got a family to look after, Rupes. Can't live with the in-laws all our lives and that crypt isn't human friendly." Another flash. The crypt, something hazy now in sharp relief, down to the tiniest details. Dark, dank, cement and earth. And one hell of a beautiful bedroom set. _Slayer blood. Does a body- and a mind- good. _"Hm. Seem to be feeling better." He whispered to Buffy, soft enough only she could hear. "Memories." He tapped his head.

"Me, too." She mouthed, then listened to Giles' reassuring, placating words to Spike, tripping over himself almost, telling Spike he knew he was taking care of Buffy. Giles cleared his throat, staving Joyce off for just one more moment. "I called Angel to let him know the crisis had passed. After the one sided call earlier, I didn't want him thinking we needed backup, as it were."

"Thank Christ." Spike mumbled. Buffy elbowed him, having a hard time not laughing at her lover's sour expression.

"I told him you were fine, but he insists on hearing it from your own lips. He requests a call back."

"Seriously?" Buffy moaned. "He always does this! He says he's leaving and then boom, there he is. Why is he torturing himself? I mean, he knows I'm engaged, I'm not in love with him anymore, but no, he has to do this noble, heart bleeding thing."

Giles looked at the phone in his hand. That sounded- extraordinarily clear and accurate, both objective and with emotional perception. Not like the "old" Buffy, but not like the amnesia patient Buffy, either. "Buffy- what was your address before you lived in Sunnydale?"

"What? I don't know, some place in Los Angeles." Buffy narrowed her eyes.

"Mhm. And the first book I ever gave you as the librarian at Sunnydale High School?"

"Oh, that big scary book of the 'Vampyre'." Buffy laughed. "Why the questions? You know I don't like them."

"Because, my dear," he sighed tiredly, "it's just about twenty one days since your attack. According to Walsh's research, twenty one days is how long the effects of the neuro taser last. Your hippocampus and cerebellum are now not just making do with the accelerated Slayer healing, they are _actually _healing, on their own. The effects are wearing off, Buffy. Your memories are coming back, faster, more complete." He expected some kind of cheer. He got an impatient whine before she launched into speech.

"I know. But I still don't want to do the questioning thing, okay? And I don't want to call Angel tonight. Tonight is about celebrating and talking with people I actually love, not used to obsess over. Or love. Whatever, if I get all my memories back, I can remember him all I want, but I'm _so_ not doing the unhappy crap again." Buffy looked up at Spike, who had stepped back a bit, retreating a few spaces away with a tense smile on his face as he heard the conversation unfold. "You get that right?" She was speaking to Giles, but looking hard at Spike. The vampire nodded.

Giles also agreed. "I reminded him, Buffy. You are your own person. You belong to yourself."

"That's true." Buffy murmured absently, still looking at Spike, at how he'd distanced himself ever so slightly. _I get to choose who I give myself to, Spike. I choose you. I chose you._ She touched her claim and her necklace as she looked at him, and waited to feel an answering thought, but none came, just a nod and a soft smile as he slipped out the front door. "Giles? I uh- I have to go." Buffy watched him leave, eyes traveling with him.

"Just speak to Joyce for a moment, she's practically dislocated my wrist trying to get to the phone, Buffy." He passed her over to her mother.

"Oh, Baby, you're okay? Really? And Spike?" Joyce pressed her hands to her rapidly beating heart as she heard her daughter's voice.

"We're great, Mom. Just dirty and sticky. We're clean now, and we'll be there in - I don't know, depends on if I have to 'convince' Willy." A smile crossed her face. "It shouldn't be long, either way. He usually gives me whatever I want after one punch."

"You're beating up people? Buffy, what in the world-" Joyce's aghast gasp was hastily overridden by Buffy.

"He's a demon snitch, Mom. He takes money from the highest bidder to spill the secrets he overhears, and since I never had money, I just hit him. Only a couple times! Only to save lives, too. Angel's- I think. Or Spike's. No, that couldn't be right, but Spike was involved. It doesn't matter. The only way I'd hit him tonight is if he told Spike he lost the job because he was busy watching my back. Spike doesn't deserve that. He's my hero. I can't do this without him, not anymore." She said firmly, eyes suddenly filling. _Been alone, even with other people by my side- for so long. Been in that box for so long. I need him._

"I know Buffy, I just-" Joyce sighed, and smiled tightly, "just want you to hurry home, okay? Your old mom needs a hug."

"In an hour or so, 'old mom'." Buffy teased, and hung up the phone, hurrying to find her other half.

* * *

><p><em> So. The research proves itself. Who'd have thought it? The mad doctor bitch made a few good calculations after all. Be healed in no time. <em>Spike reached for his lighter. He didn't smoke now, but that habit was more than ingrained. His hand sank into the pocket of his duster, groping for the comforting object. He knew he ought to be reaching for his girl, but... _Bloody hell. It's easy to say you don't care about the past when it's barely there, but when it comes flooding back... She did choose me. She's mine, I'm hers, she's my world, I'm her life, her freedom. That won't change. But I wonder if _she'll _change? Just a bit. When the old ghosts start moving in on my turf. God, I could use a cig right now, at least watch the flames dance, and - and where is that buggerin' lighter when I actually need it?_

His hand found his switchblade, a crumpled piece of brown bag- he smiled as he felt it. Their "to do" list. As a couple. Jobs, a flat, plannin' the wedding, starting over together, slates wiped clean. He swallowed and rooted past it in the deep pockets. He reassured himself that it would indeed be used, just might need to wait. His fingers suddenly touched leather, not the cotton lining of the pockets. "Dammit. Ripped seam, must've been the knife. Or one of those stakes." He mumbled and pulled the coat off as he sat down on the porch steps. He turned the pocket inside out and shook.

His lighter fell to the ground, as well as another piece of paper. A nice piece of folded, white, lined looseleaf, in his handwriting. "What's this?"

He already knew, though. He unfolded it and shook his head at the way life hands you what you want- sometimes a little late.

_Dress_

_Tuxes _

_Band_

_Invitations- ask Willow to help_

_Cake topper- smear groom's mouth with a little red paint_

_Giles- give Buffy away_

_Late afternoon ceremony under the trees- NO!_

_Wind Beneath My Wings_

_Registries?_

_ Why'd I keep this? I know it was only a day or so before we got zapped, but I'd have thrown this out straight away. Why keep it? Why can't I remember why I kept it? Damn. Maybe I just shoved it in my pocket. _

But that answer didn't really satisfy him.

"Spike?" Buffy emerged from the house and watched him jump at her voice. Her heart stabbed her. "I'm sorry to take so long, Mom was, well, Mom."

"No worries, Luv." His voice sounded slightly hollow. "C'mon. We'd better go, yeah?"

"Yeah." She swallowed, wanted to say so much more. _Is he worried about my memories, or ones of his own? He's already seen his past kills, past Slayers, that Dru girl... the biting tonight. I didn't mind it. He knows that. Please don't let him be getting ready to "do what's best for me". No. I know him. And if I just trust him- he won't let me down. He's not going to leave. He can't. We're bound. _She walked past him, gently touching his shoulder, and went to the car, climbing in. _If there's one thing I know, remember, and just downright believe- it's that Spike will always come after me. He can't resist. _She crossed her arms across her chest and let one hand slide up to her throat, caressing her necklace comfortingly. _It's going to be fine. We handled the worst crisis of our lives, I think we can handle some actual positive stuff happening._

* * *

><p>Spike got to his feet, and tucked his pockets back in, shook the coat out before reloading the pockets. Something small and silver fell out, landed on his boot, and bounced down the steps. "Damn." He sighed and stooped to retrieve it, shoving himself back into his coat as he did.<p>

_Her ring. My ring. No, _her _ring. _Spike's fingers gently scooped up a chunky silver skull on a thick, dented band. _It was what I was wearing at the time, so I offered it to her, and she took it. She smiled at me, an' we kissed- and for that night, I truly was the happiest man in the world. _

_I kept it. She gave it back and I didn't put it on, I didn't throw it out, that or the list. Kept 'em both. Because- just for that one night, I was happy in a way I never felt before. Pure. Pure joy, pure love. No evil tainting it, just her sunshine inside me. _

Fire came back inside him suddenly, and he stopped mulling over the ring in his fingertips. He curled his fist around it and clutched it tight, eyes burning. _God dammit, I am not some little nancy twerp who turns into a coward when things change. I am William the Bloody and I'm a bad ass, the biggest big bad. I know it, and she knows it. She knew it then, and part of her knew it this whole time. She still loved me, and I still loved her. Kept the ring because some part of me knew it would never be mine again, it was always meant for her._

"SLAYER!" He bellowed suddenly, voice harsh and rending the air of the quiet street. A few curtains twitched, but he didn't care. "Slayer!"

"I'm coming!" Buffy scrambled from the car and ran to him, heart thudding. "What's the matter, what happened, what-"

"Shut up an' listen to me." He grabbed her wrists and sat her down hard on the porch steps, standing in front of her, legs wide apart, hands clenched at his sides. Her jaw dropped, but he plowed on. "You know that night?" He didn't wait for clarification, there was only one night he could mean. "I made you promises. I was under a spell then, but it doesn't matter. I made promises then, and I've made promises since, and I want to keep all of them. Every single one, Slayer. Somewhere deep inside that fractured mind, you know you _should_ hate me, I know I should hate you right back- but it never quite came off, did it, Pet?"

Buffy wordlessly shook her head, a torrent of emotions swirling in her chest.

"Somehow- even before some laser got in my skull- _you_ got inside my head." He took a deep breath and the snarling scowl he wore turned into a disbelieving, semi-awed smirk. "I kept our list, Buffy. No one threw it out, no one lost it. I had it this whole time, Luv. Found it inside the lining of my coat." He reached into his pocket with the hand not holding the ring and held the paper out to her.

"Oh. Oh, Spike." She took it from him, only to find the hand had locked around her fingers and wouldn't let them go.

"I also found this." His other fist unfolded, claimed her hand and forced something into her palm as he sank down in front of her, not kneeling, but crouching on the bottom step as she sat on the top, looking intently at her.

Buffy tried to speak, but no words came out. _I finally get my voice back and I can't even talk, I have too much to say, nothing can get out._ She just folded her fingers around it tightly, like the greatest gift in the world was hers to keep.

"I want you to have it. An' I know things are changing fast, have changed fast for us, for a few weeks now. We know lots about one another, and we're together, but there's other bits an' pieces, old ghosts to fit into our lives." Spike cupped both hands around her smaller one which clasped the ring. His ring, now her ring,_ their_ ring. "A few weeks is a short time to fall properly in love. I know we've made our own vows, an' I know we have more to make. I just wanted you to know, if you've changed your mind about doin' it right away, or if they've changed your mind- about how things oughta be-" his eyes flickered away for a split second, then boldly bored into hers once more, "I'll still be around when you're ready. I know you'll choose me. Even if you need time. But I know it. Like you an' I don't remember things, we just _know_ 'em, like they're part of us? I know it just like that. Like I know you. Like I know _us_." He nodded once, and swallowed anything else he wanted to say. He'd said enough.

"My feelings haven't changed." Buffy finally regained her voice. "They never changed, even if they got thrown a lot of curve balls. I knew I loved you. I still love you." She flipped his hands over, and opened her fist inside them, dropping the ring back into his hand. Spike stared at her, slight confusion in his eyes, but not doubt, simply waiting for her to show him the way. Like they'd shown each other so many things. She smiled and stroked his cheek as her hands pulled free. Then she let her left one rest on his arm, fingers pointedly spread.

"I still love you, too." He pressed the ring softly on over her fourth finger. "Say yes. Make me the happiest man in the world."

"Of course it's yes." Buffy leaned down and kissed him hard, pulling him to his feet as she rose.

They finally pulled apart, silver ring gleaming in his platinum hair as her fingers lingered, tangled in the pale blonde streaks. "Come on. We have stuff to do." Buffy whispered, eyes leaking happy tears as her smile, wet and wavering, played across her face.

"I know. But after we're done that..." Spike beamed as well, unwilling to relinquish his hold on her hands, her body, her soft cheek as he wiped tears from it.

"After- why don't you take your Slayer for a drive?"

"Where do you want to go?" He gallantly lead her to their car.

"Anywhere in the world. As long as it's with you."

_To be continued..._


	27. Chapter 27

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Note: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Author's Note- Tying up soooo many loose ends here. Hang in there!_

_Dedicated to DLillith21, ginar369, cavemenftw, The Three March Hares, Lil-Let, Rosalea12, Halekent, omslagpapper, rororogers, Litalove, Sirius120, Naomi, and alexiarrose. Thank you also to the kind anonymous reviewers, whether you are new readers, or old ones who forgot to log in!_

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously not mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part XXVII

Willy's bar was open, but half empty as Spike and Buffy entered, arms around each other. "Spike! Slayer! How's my two favorite people?" Willy said heartily as they approached, then in an undertone he hissed, "Get your girlfriend out of here! Slayers aren't good for business, an' I finally got payin' customers in here!"

"You owe that to her, Willy." Spike said easily, leaning his elbow on the bar top. "That's why I'm late for work. Who do you think got you your voice back?"

Willy nodded. "Yeah, you superhero types do that. Thanks, kid. First drink's on me. Then can you get outta here?"

Buffy laughed. "Spike helped. In fact if he hadn't been with me- we'd be about to live in _permanent _silence. These creepy guys were cutting out hearts. They had three. Four more and you would never snitch again. Or take another drink order. Or get another shipment of booze in here. Because of being under a lifelong quarantine." She smiled sweetly, belying the hard edge in her voice.

Willy gulped, rummaged under the counter and suddenly pulled a thick plastic blood donation bag from under the bar where the ice chest was. "Spike, why-why don't you take tonight off and start tomorrow? Bein' the hero of the world and stuff? An' since you done us all a a favor- here. Bag of AB negative, donated just this weekend."

Buffy raised her eyebrows and Willy gulped. "Donated, I swear!"

"And where'd it get donated _to_?" Buffy demanded.

"Fell off the back of an ambulance?" Willy laughed nervously and began hastily polishing the counter.

Spike smirked and pocketed it."I'll take it. But have you got any champagne back there? Got somethin' to celebrate." He rested his chin on Buffy's shining hair and she beamed. She glowed. Just like she had the night he first asked her.

"Champagne? Ooh, I dunno, don't got a lotta demons asking for the good stuff. Not the ones who come in here, anyway." Willy spoke as he scanned the shelves behind the bar, pulling his usual front stock of cheap liquors aside and scanning the back. The skinny, short man made a straining grab and pulled out a large, dusty bottle from the back of the top shelf. "There. Somethin' for you, since blood ain't too human-friendly, to celebrate savin' the city." He presented it to the Slayer with a smile, mentally making a note to take something off of Spike's first paycheck.

"Ah, not celebratin' that." Spike squeezed her tight to his chest. "But if I remember my human customs," he and Buffy shared a private smile at the hidden joke, "bubbly is what you use to toast engagements." Buffy practically bounced under his arm and stuck out her hand with a tiny squeal.

Willy was stunned. The last time they'd come in here, all cuddly and playing nice, he'd thought his jaw might never come off the floor, and now he thought the rest of his body might as well join it there, shocked out of all proportion. Spike having a little fling with his enemy- sure, she was hot, the Slayer getting her jollies- okay, maybe. But engaged? With a ring? Not some pretty rock, something like a silver brass knuckle with a skull motif, but still a ring. Can vamps even get married? Was the girl even legal?

Buffy and Spike stared at the bartender as he swayed and blinked, paling past his normal pasty color. "Hey? Willy? You alright, Boss?" Spike reached out and steadied the man. _Boss. Ha._ _No one ever bossed me, but my heart. _Nonetheless Spike used the honorific because he was trying to keep the job, and he was already late for the first day, now cutting out early. He might think Willy was a piece of shit wrapped in a fish belly complexion, but the man was giving him a job, helping him make a life for his beautiful bride. "Willy! Snap out of it!"

Willy smiled suddenly, a glazed look on his face as he croaked, "Mazel tov!"

"Thank you." Buffy leaned forward and squeezed his arm.

"Invite you to the weddin'." Spike nodded and waved as he led Buffy out of the bar. "Be in tomorrow!"

"Yeah. Yeah, you- you do that." Willy waved distractedly and waited until the couple left to pour himself a large bourbon. "Oh boy, this town's about to change..."

* * *

><p>Once back in the car, Buffy broke off their giggling kisses, pushing herself back in her seat, the bottle rolling with a clunk to the floor. "I really don't drink."<p>

"That's okay Luv, we can all have a sip, just a toast, and your folks can have the rest of the bottle. After that- how about I take you out, Poppet? Dinner and a show? Engaged an' we've never had a proper date."

Buffy's eyes lit up, but after a second's thought she shook her head. "There are still commandos out there, Spike. How about I take you home instead? "We'll have dinner- and _I'll _give you a show?

Spike shivered deliciously. "Deal. Talk about an offer I can't refuse. That's my Slayer. I'll give you a raincheck for my idea some night after the army lads have packed it in."

* * *

><p><em>Hi Riley,<em>

_Some of the students in my class were wondering if you'll be around over winter break, and will you be back next semester? You and the other TAs. Because we wanted to know_

"Why do we want to know?" Willow asked. She was slightly muzzy feeling after the champagne. She didn't drink, and whatever Willy had given the engaged couple wasn't exactly smooth and mellow, despite being champagne.

" 'Cause Dead Boy Sr. wa-wants to know." Xander hiccuped and crashed down beside his best friend.

"I can't tell Riley that!" Willow playfully pushed at his shoulder and Xander sprawled back, still twirling the stem of one of Giles' seldom used wine glasses.

"Tutoring?" Tara still had most of her champagne in her glass, having had the called for sip and being a little too scared drink more. Not scared of the other people, but scared to let herself go. Even spending an entire day with this many people was foreign to her.

"Huh?" Xander smiled lazily at the blonde witch he'd just met.

"T-Tutoring. Willow could say she wants to know if any TAs are a-around because she and her f-friends want tutoring before taking the 200 level psych class."

"You are so smart. And magical." Willow gushed. "We should have met sooner."

Tata flushed happily and took another sip. "Th-that would have been really nice."

"Yeah..." Willow felt herself clumsily falling backwards against the couch and cleared her throat with sudden forcefulness, glaring at her laptop as if it were the cause of her slight loss of balance and clear headedness. "Okay. Finishing this..."

_Hi Riley,_

_Some of the students in my class were wondering if you'll be around over winter break, and will you be back next semester? You and the other TAs. Because we wanted to know if there might be anyone around to tutor us before we take the 200 level psych course. We heard some rumors that the TAs might not be back. Please let me know as soon as you can._

_Thanks, _

_Willow_

_ "_All done. Is there anymore of this?" Willow smiled dreamily at her empty glass.

"The 'adults' took it." Anya muttered bitterly. "I've been allowed to drink for a millennium and now- I get 'carded'. I hate being 19 again."

Tara looked between Anya and Willow in alarm. "Oh. Yeah. Anya's ex-demon and Spike's a vampire. In case you hadn't picked up on that. Buffy is the Slayer, mystical chosen one type of deal to kill evil, but she's not stupid about it. She gives people a chance, no matter what they are." Xander stepped in to explain as Willow seemed tongue-tied.

"Oh." Tara blinked, tried to speak, and settled for another sip.

"You're right, Will. She is cool." Xander grinned.

"Thanks." Tara blushed. "Everyone here is really nice. Even Spike. Even th-though he s-seemed kind of scary earlier."

"He seemed completely out of his mind giggly and excited now. Buffy, too." Anya sat in Giles' arm chair, her legs draped lazily over the arm.

"Yeah. I wish they hadn't bailed on us, even if the excited, giggly bridal brained Buffy was getting on my nerves. A little." Xander stared into space aimlessly.

"This is her second chance to make it stick. She's allowed to bail. _This_ time." Willow leaned against her childhood friend and yawned. It has been a ridiculously long day. "Bedtime?"

"Amen." Xander agreed.

But no one moved.

* * *

><p>"I should get home. Get to bed." Joyce looked into her second empty glass with a curious frown. "This doesn't taste like champagne. It bubbles, but it- I can't describe it. It-"<p>

"Has a kick like a backfiring tank?" Giles slurred slightly. "Although it could be the fact that we've both had quite a bit, and we had brandy just an hour or so prior."

"Yes, that could be it. Or it could be the fact that this bottle says 'Hades Special Reserve'." Joyce examined the dust streaked bottle. "This isn't like band candy, is it? Enchanted champagne?" She asked in a suddenly panicked, alert voice.

"Oh, don't be silly." Giles snorted.

Joyce bridled. She had been the model of support and patience today, and there was nothing silly about asking if something from "Hades" might be magical, _not_ on a Hellmouth. "Don't be _silly_? _Don't be silly_? I've learned that fairytale monsters are real, my daughter is engaged to a member of the undead community, and let me remind you that I've already had an experience with possessed chocolate! Don't tell me you forgot _that_, Mr. 'Ever been on top with handcuffs on? Let's see how good your balance is.' !"

Giles spluttered, spat, and began to apologize for both his 'silly' comment, and his past sexual challenges. Joyce in turn blushed and began talking over him, making her own heartfelt apologies for bringing up their chocolate-induced indiscretions, the things they'd sworn never to bring up, ever.

"Uhhh. Guys?" Xander was leaning in the doorway, a severely freaked out expression on his face. "We're gonna go. All of us. Right the hell now."

"Oh, no- no need, honestly!" Giles and Joyce followed after him, protesting.

"Xander, I've had a very long day, and this went straight to my head." Joyce tried to explain.

"We're all very tired, overwrought. Quick to speak." Giles said in abject mortification.

"No one's holding that against you." Anya said brightly. "We just think you should talk about it when you're alone. Well- _those_ three said it._ I _was wondering if you were on a flat hard surface or a- ow! Xander!" Anya found herself tugged forcibly though the door.

"Nice to meet you. Really. V-very nice." Tara squeaked past, pink-cheeked and smiling shyly.

"Bye! Really, we have to go, it's fine, we- we- we're tired and we- didn't hear anything! Anything at all! Bye!" Willow rambled, tripped backwards into Tara's side, grabbed the door handle and shut it behind the retreating foursome.

* * *

><p>Giles turned from the slammed door, a pale rose color on his normally even complexion. "Joyce. I am so <em>terribly <em>sorry, that I ever, that is to say... " He exhaled, eyes closed and pained. "The things I may have said, that wasn't me. I wouldn't ask someone I cared about to- to do those things, to challenge them, make it a joke."

Joyce nodded silently, then sighed. " I seem to remember I did a pretty good job. Balancing."

Giles laughed once, a short, surprised bark. "You did. And I- I was a stevedore, i believe you said?"

"I'm surprised I could remember a word with that many syllables right then. _Ripper_."

"You did. _Joycie_. You also remembered a great many words with one syllable. Hunk. Stud. Some others." He cleared his throat, this time watching Joyce turn beet red. "But that isn't the point. I merely meant, wine, or drink, or candy, cursed or not, that's not really me. That was Ripper, the idiot youth who's gotten a second chance at being a man."

"I know. Rupert. Now, _he_ probably would treat any woman he was interested in with great respect, move very slowly, take thing step by step."

Giles sighed. "Yes. The soul of caution after having the misfortune to relive some of the idiocies of my reckless youth."

Joyce closed her eyes, and rubbed her forehead tiredly. "You know- after the number of scares and surprises I've had in the last few years- in the last few days alone- I could use some caution."

His throat tightened ever so slightly. "Could you really?"

She gave him a sideways glance. "Yes. Just a little."

"Well. Marvelous." His smile burst forth and surprised them both. "Are you hungry?"

"Famished."

"I have- oh dear. Hm." Giles considered the fact that he severely needed to get to the store, and stop feeding between three and eight people at any given time. "Toast? Possibly. I think the youngsters made short work of the pizza."

Joyce laughed. "I knew we should have ordered two. It doesn't matter. Toast would be fine."

"Good. Yes. Sit, sit, I'll just-" Giles stopped talking as Joyce shook her head. "No?"

"No, I will not sit. You refused to be treated like a guest in my home, I'm returning the favor. C'mon." She tucked her arm through his, and the two world-weary people headed into the kitchen to start working on their "second chance" in earnest.

* * *

><p>"When you have a second, Finn." Andrews blocked Riley's path from the Initiative lab to the elevator that entered Lowell House.<p>

"Yes, Sir." Finn paused. _Here it comes. Sam told. Or someone did. That I fraternized or that I let an HST go. That I let _the_ HST and his "mate" go. If anyone connects them to me, I'm going to be found facedown in the nearest weapons testing range._

"This base is being thermal cleaned tomorrow, after the contents are emptied and the personnel is dispersed." _And Walsh is handed over. _He continued. "Your unit moves out tomorrow night. Everyone's been reassigned. You're heading to D.C., meet up with Fremont and his attaché, then join Billings' squad, head for Central America."

"Yes, Sir. I heard, Sir. Not about Fremont though." Riley tried not to sweat out the fear he felt.

"He's proud of your work in helping find the evidence we needed to wrap up Walsh's criminal actions. You'll be given a citation. Recommended- by myself, for a promotion."

Riley grinned broadly. "Really? I mean, really, Sir?"

"That's right."

_I think I finally understand "karma". _"Thank you, Sir."

"Just one more thing you need to do." Andrews smiled himself.

"What's that, Sir?"

Andrews' smile turned grimly sarcastic.

* * *

><p>"Karma sharma." Riley put his head down an stack of about seventy manila folders, each bearing a final exam. The army wanted no trace left in Sunnydale, a completely clean break. Which meant- all the finals graded, all the grades entered, any and all papers submitted, any and all emails on his campus email answered, and then his account closed, his faculty identification turned in, and Walsh's office sorted and emptied, any papers belonging to students also graded and entered. Out of all those tasks, the only one he was being excused from was sorting and packing Walsh's office.<p>

"Death by paperwork. My father would be so ashamed." Riley winced, and began flipping open the first folders and switching on his computer.

"Agent Finn?" A gentle tap on the door and a female voice.

"Lt. Smith? Come in." Riley quickly made sure he was decent, in his olive skivvies (buttoned tightly) and an old jersey.

"I heard about all you had to do before the base closes." Smith entered and shut the door behind her. "I brought you something to help you stay awake." She held out a large steel thermos. "Coffee. Black."

"Oh, you're a wonderful, wonderful person and I totally believe in karma again." Riley sighed and fairly ripped the top off of the thermos to inhale the caffeine fumes.

"O-kaaay." Sam said with a small, dubious chuckle.

"Long story."

"Everything around here is a long story." Sam hesitated by the door. "Do those finals have an answer key?"

"An answer guide, more accurately. A lot of essay and short answer questions." Riley shrugged.

"I'm pretty good at interpreting." Sam stepped farther into the room. "Want some help?"

_I think I'm in love._ "Please. For a little bit, if you can spare the time. I know your squad is busy too."

"Didn't they tell you? Billings wants me to come back, so they requisitioned me from Hernandez. I'm going to back to Belize, and they told me I might as well wait a few days and go with you so I can brief you on the current missions. So I'm kind of on your schedule."

"That's amazing." Riley enthused. He immediately felt reenergized. "If you start on these-" he put a stack of folders in her arms and placed the grading notes on top, "I'll deal with the email and start entering the grades."

"Sounds like a plan, partner." Sam winked and sat on the edge of his bed, in a taut black tee that showed off her physique and some faded blue jeans. Her long dark hair was pulled up in a bun, showing off the lovely angels of her face in contrast of the fullness of her lips.

_Partner. I love the sound of that. A real partner. God, she's so beautiful, too. Not like Buffy, not deceptive, a strong inside under a petite, pretty little face. Sam is beautiful and strong, inside and outside. Dad would say she was a "handsome woman." And I'm going to fight by her side, in our squad. _

Riley could almost hear the wedding bells already, and was wondering is she'd wear her dress uniform or a traditional gown. He knew he was jumping the gun, but he didn't give a damn. Things had been going so wrong, for so long, that now even a slight upturn made his day.

As he opened his campus account, he could see he had several emails, and the one right on the top was from Willow. _Oh seriously, no. No, no, no, if there's a crisis, please can someone else deal with it? _He clicked on it gingerly, actually scooting farther from the screen as if afraid it might be a detonator.

He read her email three times, trying to read between the lines, tiredness and stress making that difficult. Finally, though, he was able to draft a reply.

_Willow,_

_ Sorry to let you know you'll have to get any tutoring you want from the learning center on campus. All the TAs I work with, all of the ones associated with out particular program, will be leaving tomorrow. For good. We've all taken jobs on other campuses. _

_Our work here is done._

_Sincerely, _

_your friend, Riley Finn_

* * *

><p>Willow stopped practicing her palmistry with Tara at the sound of the faint electronic ding on her laptop. "Mail!" She and Tara poured over the screen as soon as Willow's trembling fingers hit the "open" button.<p>

"They're leaving. They're all leaving." Willow clutched one hand to her heart, and one hand to her stomach, a wave of finality washing over her so strongly that it almost made her light headed, and a little queasy.

"Tomorrow." Tara pointed out. "For good. Sounds like wh-whatever this was, it's about to end."

"I know. All I have to do is call Giles and then he has to call Angel, and Angel does- whatever the heck he needs to do- and it's done." Willow's relief abated slightly. "Is it just me, or did that sound like too much to be classified as 'the end'?" Tara shrugged and smiled her luminous lopsided smile.

"It'll be over soon." She offered hopefully.

"Yeah." Willow glanced at the numbers in the upper righthand corner of her screen. After midnight. "I'll call Giles tomorrow."

* * *

><p>"You know that saying? How tomorrow never comes?" Angel wound himself sinuously around Maggie, ignoring the way the sunlight slitting through the bars of the anteroom hit him, singeing him slightly. "It came. Welcome to your last day, Mags."<p>

Maggie Walsh had found some moments of lucidity in her long and restless night of captivity. Possibly her last night alive. She had determined that she would not beg. It was only giving them what they wanted. Simple behaviorism, simple positive reinforcement, give the demon what they want- fear and desperation, and they'd only increase your behavior, torture you more.

Of course, those moments of lucidity had faded as the blackness spread from her hand up her arm. She was afraid of gangrene, of amputation. She was afraid of dying as well, and leaving the whole question of whether the arm could be saved null and void. Still, food and somewhat improved conditions had increased her energy and resolve slightly, and she met him with a stoic face and silence.

"They didn't cut out your tongue, did they?" Angel suddenly grabbed her head and pressed her cheeks together roughly, forcing her mouth to open slightly. "Because I was very clear about that. You have to be able to talk to testify. That is- if you ever make it to court." He pushed her back in her chair roughly, snapping her head back with a flick of his wrist. He squinted at the sun and then yanked the doctor back to her feet, purposely using the injured arm. He pounded on the door and shouted to the guard. "Alright! We're ready to use the phone."

The door swung open, and he hauled Maggie out. "Kinda poetic, huh, Mags? High noon, the good guys and the bad guys meeting in the center of town- only with phones. And with the time difference, 'noon' is relative. Although," he leaned down, cold lips close to her ear, "to be perfectly honest, Mags, your boys are playing it a little bit close to the vest. I've been waiting to hear if they kept their promises. I gave them twenty four hours to fix this mess- and I still haven't heard that they did." Maggie said nothing, but he could hear the blood increase its tempo inside her veins, smell a prickle of cold perspiration

The guard opened the room as requested and stood back to let Angel drag his prisoner in. "Uh- you are going to take her with you when you leave today, right?"

Angel paused and spoke to the guard, but looked at his captive with cold, glittering black eyes. "It depends on a couple phone calls. I might just leave the body, if that's okay?"

"We don't babysit vamps."

"I wouldn't turn her. Just drain her. Although turning her, and then dropping her back where she worked- now that's true justice. Hmmmm."

Walsh suddenly seemed to come awake. "You- you can't. I know about vampiric parasitism, how it's passed. I won't drink. Only weak minded humans succumb to the fear of death and choose a half life. I don't fear this theological imposition of a god waiting to judge me! I judge myself! I have done what only a so-called god could do- recreate, shape, and create lives!" Maggie wrapped her one functioning arm around herself and laughed deliriously. "You wanted my fear, but you don't understand, you're- you're infected, you're lower, riddled with some demon parasite feeding on fright." She shook her head frantically, hysterically. "There's nothing to be afraid of. Nothing! _Nothing_!"

Angel watched the guard withdraw and Walsh unravel. He leaned against the wall and watched her sinking into madness. "Mind's gone. Fear's here. Oooh, Mags." He inhaled sharply, hand tapping over his unbeating heart like a maiden in a swoon. "God, I'd love to kill you. You are truly a perfect victim. I liked the scared little girls in my day, but never underestimate the pure- _pleasure_ of a strong woman falling apart." Angel let his hands run down Maggie's arms firmly, almost caressingly, as he bowed his head again, lips actually touching her skin. "They scream just as loud, maybe even louder, and for so much longer, because they didn't think they could be broken. That's always fun, too. " Walsh shuddered and did a sudden spasmodic heave forward, her stomach filling with fear-generated acid. _Oh, Angelus, a strong woman, and all yours. No one would ever know what you did, would they? How long has it been since you broke down one of the real women, not those little girls, hmm? Like Buffy, isn't that right, Lover? Tortured her slowly, tortured them all, all the ones around her- _Angel jerked his entire body hard, a half turn, away from the woman. Strong woman. Like Buffy. No, like Buffy had been, now she's an empty woman, refilled, reshaped. Not justice. Not even revenge. Just evil. God, Walsh was evil, the things she could do. He backed away, felt dirty just for a second.

When he turned back to her, he knelt before her, eyes burning like black flames into hers. "You know, Mags, you_ should _be scared." He murmured softly, a dry, cracking whisper, deliberate in every letter. "You're so confused... You think there's no God to judge you? You don't even see what you are. I'm a demon, Maggie, but you're the devil in human form. With your powers, with your 'creating'. Didn't the devil do the same thing, take what God made-" he looked at his human form, then back at her, slowly letting his demon emerge, " and pervert it?"

Maggie just stared, open mouthed, the bile still swimming in her, burning her throat and stomach.

"You don't have to be scared of me, Doctor. But you should know there's a god. Because you're the devil." His hands moved suddenly, thumbs into her throat as he rose, her head tilting back so she stared straight up at him as he towered above her. "And when you die, from me, from old age, from whatever- just what do you think God is going to do when he finally gets his hands on you?"

It was illogical, it was all myth and superstition, Maggie valiantly argued within herself. But the cold eyes, the deadly, silky tone with its unwavering certainty penetrated her shield. And she was truly afraid.

Angel continued, musing. "I'm already damned... what's one more? If I can send you to meet your maker, isn't that," his hands slipped more fully around her throat, his fingers began to put pressure on the yielding flesh, "the ultimate justice?"

_Oh my God. He is going to do it. He is, he is, he's_- "Please!" Maggie managed to gasp as she felt her airway close.

"I was born again for her. And you killed that." Angel shook his head, fingers gripping more and more. "You had life and death in your hands, and this is the price you pay..."

"No..." Maggie managed to croak, her hand feebly scratching at the back of his wrist. "The- deal."

"Maybe they want me to be the trigger man, Professor. Maybe that body they found is good enough. Your notes are probably all over it, your precious work, all you ever cared about. You don't see the people inside, you see the outside waiting to be ripped apart!" Angel was shaking her now, hands grasping as he leaned forward, tears of rage and desperation and grief mingling as they fell onto her own wet face, streaked with tears of pain and fear. _All the monsters weep. Yes, when evil dies, all the monsters will weep. But the world's a better place._ "They don't need you to-"

The flimsy wooden chair Maggie sat on wasn't meant to withstand vampiric pressure and it suddenly broke, Maggie landing on the floor, knees curled under her as she first sprawled, then wrapped herself into a fetal position.

Angel's chest heaved, and he panted, though he didn't need the air. _What am I doing? What am I doing? It doesn't matter, it's too late to stop, there's no choice._

Cordelia's voice, her face and her small smile, her real smile, not the broad fake one she showed cameras and producers, suddenly imprinted itself over his eyes. Fresh from last night. _"There's always a choice." _

"I'm not strong enough to make it anymore. I am so tired of trying to see, to be strong." Angel ranted suddenly, kicking out at the bits of broken chair. "I can't do this! I can't be a champion for justice if you don't send me a little freaking back up!" Angel grabbed a sharp splintered piece of the chair's back and loomed over Maggie. "You know what? We're going out together. Yeah, Mags. First you, then me." He looked at the wood in his hand with a sick longing. _End it. No more fighting. no more knowing I was in love, no more missing that love 'cause it's gone. 'Cause Walsh erased it. Buffy doesn't even think back on me as her first love, she doesn't think of me at all! I'm not there, wiped away! _ He clutched the wood tighter and leaned over the woman on the floor. "We can both go to hell and when I'm as damned as I can already be, when God's done with your sorry ass, I'll be waiting for my turn. I'll torture you like I want because I won't need my redemption anymore. There was never any hope of me getting rid of my sins, but I can rid the world of yours." Just as suddenly as he'd been over her, he was torn away, now pacing. "That's what you want, right? That's what you're trying to tell me right?" He screamed at the ceiling, to the gods and powers that be. "Saved for a purpose, and this is it! _Right_?"

The sudden high pitched noise breaking the reverberation of his shouted words scared them both. Maggie flinched and Angel gasped.

_The phone. Oh thank God_. It never occurred to Maggie she was thanking a god she didn't believe in.

Angel tore the phone from his pocket and pressed it to his ear with a shaking hand. "Hello?"

"Angel, good morning, this is Giles."

Angel looked around distractedly. The black haze of desperation was clearing but leaving him feeling shaky and confused. What was he doing? What had he been about to do? "Hi."

"Yes, we have that confirmation you asked for."

"What?" He leaned against the wall. He felt sick, dizzy.

"The military operation is leaving. All the men on that base are leaving."

"How do you know?" Angel whispered.

"Our contact managed to tell Willow. Being additionally cautious, she and I entered the hacked website we'd been in previously. The buildings are scheduled to be 'thermally cleaned' and the project's website is now listed as inactive, with the status 'project terminated'. There's even a list of all the new deployments for the current operatives, and the time they're to leave the base. By midnight tonight, it should be effectively and completely closed."

Angel sank down, sitting on his rear, head back against the wall, eyeing Walsh. "It really is over. They just need that one last piece."

"Yes. They do." Giles' voice was severe. "If they don't have Professor Walsh- this could remain an active case in military history, Angel. They could continue to come back here, searching for a lead, a clue, perhaps reopening the need to return her."

"I will. I am." Angel swallowed painfully. "Giles? Buffy?"

"She didn't want to call last night. She-" Giles changed what he'd been about to say, about the celebratory intentions of the engaged couple. "She needs some time, Angel. I promise you. She is fine." Silence. "Angel?"

"It's just hard." Angel finally whispered.

Giles was stunned, but he didn't know why. Perhaps it was because it was the first time Angel spoke only for himself, not for others, not for his sins, for fates or pasts. Just for the man who was hurting. "I know. Angel- I also lost someone I loved."

Angel felt a blacksnake whip crack around an already fragile heart. "I'm so sorry."

"I know." He did not forgive. But then again, he was not speaking to her murderer, only his twin. "I didn't say it to chastise you. I said it to comfort you. I lost someone I loved. But I have gotten a second chance."

"She's dead. And I'm dead. To Buffy."

"A second chance to be happy. It is hard to wait. To bear that sadness." Giles' hand moved absently across his desk, straightening a paper here, a pen there- ah. There is was. He curled his hand tightly around the rose quartz Willow had given him. Jenny's quartz. It promoted healing. They were all healing. "But there _can_ be a second chance. For everyone. Anyone." _A soulless monster like Spike, for a naive young man like Riley, for a broken woman like Buffy, a thousand year old demon like Anya. Even for two middle aged people like Joyce and I. _"You have a second chance. You were spared eternity in hell once. A chance like that- it's never offered. Don't throw it away. Find something worth holding onto, and let go of what you've lost."

The phone made a soft beep as Giles ended the call. Walsh still cowered, rocking herself silently on her side, and Angel still shook, sitting up, breathing without breath, pulling in air like a racehorse badly winded. He pushed in a few numbers frantically.

"This better not be about a disemboweling, dismembering, or any other dis-ing, because I just woke up and I'm out of coffee." Cordelia's griping voice answered.

"Hi."

The brunette beauty stopped poking through her fridge and straightened up. Angel sounded- tearful? Or scared. Or maybe cold. Vampires didn't get cold, did they? "Hi." She said, suddenly sober.

"Do you know that gas station outside of Sunnydale? The one by the all night diner?"

"Yeah. I know it." Cordelia was so surprised by his tone she didn't even bother to point out that only truckers and hookers frequented the place.

"Can you meet me there tonight? After dark, I'm not sure what time."

"Of course I can." Cordelia said with genuine warmth. "I can meet you right now. Although if it's far-I'm gonna need gas money reimbursement, okay?"

"Tonight's fine. I'll pay for the gas."

She gripped the phone a little tighter. "Don't worry about that. Of course I'll be there. I can be there now. You're my friend. I'll always be there for you."

"Cordy, I'm having- having a really bad day." Angel whispered. "I can't talk about it right now."

"You _wanna_ talk to me about it?" She sat down abruptly on the floor, in between the counter and the door of her still open fridge.

"I- don't know. I don't open up much."

"Me either. Not really. Not about big things." She leaned her head in her palm. "But if it hurts bad enough- boy, you can't shut me up."

"Just when you hurt? You must be in some serious pain, Cordy." Angel felt a glimmer of a smile, and of hope, touch him.

"Did you just make a crack?"

"Maybe."

"Oh God. This must be serious." She grinned. "Call me back with a time. I'll be there. I promise."

"Thanks." Angel hung up, stood and moved to the phone on the small table. After watching Maggie enter her codes, he was able to dial and eventually navigate the menu until he heard Fremont's voice.

"Walsh?"

"No. I'm ready to drop her off. I confirmed you're moving out." Angel's voice was no longer the vicious, snarky tone it had been. It was tired. "I need it to be after sunset."

"Yes, yes, of course!" Fremont was relieved, and he agreed with embarrassing eagerness. He'd been prepared to offer a dozen proofs and now needed none.

"I won't tell you the place until after I leave. I don't trust you." Angel muttered. "So give me a number to reach someone, whoever is going to pick up your trash."

"DuVal! Get me Andrews' number and then get on a plane! You'll meet her, take her into official custody." Fremont snapped his fingers and hissed.

Du Val gulped and tremblingly wrote down the number requested. His superior repeated it.

"Okay. It'll be in or around Sunnydale. I'll make sure she's secured, that she can't get away, get free, until you get her. I wouldn't want anything permanent to happen to your star witness."

Fremont felt a sick sense of dread creeping over him. The calm voice, the lack of pressure and threats, the lack of malevolent tones... "Let me speak to Walsh."

"Okay." Angel held out the phone. "Your boss wants you."

Maggie scrambled up and grabbed the phone. "He's going to kill me!"

Fremont paused. What if he did? Her notes, the body of Hearst, they had a damn compelling case, plus, these conversations were being recorded, he was sure. Her capture was documented. She was the "fall guy" but... he might be able to skid by without her. Worst case scenario of course. Mustn't show any signs that he wasn't doing everything he could. In case. "He's arranged to drop you off. You will come to no harm, Professor Walsh. Just remain calm. We're working on getting you back to safety." He soothed.

"You don't know, you don't see... he's crazy. He's evil, he's deranged, talking to himself, accusing me, threatening me..." Maggie babbled.

"Hang in there. Col. Andrews will being seeing you as soon as the sun sets. You will receive a fair hearing, Walsh. No one intends to hurt you."

Angel cocked his head, listening in. A hit of malice entered his voice as he whispered, "He doesn't care anymore. Listen to him, Mags. The pleading, the promising- it's gone. Maybe he thinks you'd be better off dead. You couldn't incriminate anyone if you couldn't talk."

Maggie looked in horror at Angel, then at the phone in her hand, listening to Fremont's lackluster reassurances and denials.

Angel took the phone. "Seven, tonight. I'll call with the location."

"Agreed."

Angel hung up and stared at Maggie, paler than ever and looking genuinely terrified. "A person I know told me everyone gets second chances. That's true, you know." Angel pulled her to her feet, and took a pair of heavy iron shackles from the interior of his coat and clapped them around her wrists, making her scream as the iron squeezed the broken and battered flesh. He jerked the chain and led her along, closely in front of him, one hand on her neck, the other on the chain.

"You know what's sad, Mags? I've seen your second chance. It sucks when the second chance looks the same as the first one." _She's going to end up rotting in a cell or a box, no matter what. If I do it, or her own people do it. She's going to get the same fate, just one will be a little kinder. It's still the loss of freedom, the slow madness of being kept from what you want, locked in a box... maybe alive, maybe dead. Who knows? I know one thing- my second chance isn't going to get wasted._

* * *

><p>"Well, we don't want to waste any time. It's so precious, you never know when things could change." Buffy explained. She leaned against Spike's side, and they both sat on the couch facing Joyce.<p>

"I understand. Really. But your aunts and your father-"

"You can tell us who we should invite. If I can't remember them first." Buffy bit her lip and looked at the piece of paper spread over her knee, Spike's sinewy hand adding to it in his surprisingly neat, italic writing. "Giles is still giving me away, Mom."

Joyce opened her mouth in protest, then closed it. "I understand."

Buffy blinked and Spike raised one eyebrow. "You do?"

"Mr. Giles has been very important in your life, he loves you very much, and he is part of your family. But _you_ have to explain it to your father." Joyce turned and swept up the stairs to her bedroom. "I have to get dressed, I'm really late! I own an art gallery, did you know that?"

"Yes!" Buffy and Spike shouted up the stairs.

"We'll have to clean up that room if you're staying in it. All those packing crates!"

"Okay, Mom!"

"Can you do that today? In between planning this wedding of the century?"

"Small, private ceremony!" Spike disagreed. "We have to find a vamp safe place. Outdoors is out!"

Buffy wheedled. "But at night-"

"Rain." Spike said firmly.

"In California?" Buffy challenged, hands on hips.

"Sometimes!"

"Packing crates?" Joyce interjected from above.

"We'll take care of it!"

"Thank you. Be good! Oh, and Buffy can you take something out of the freezer? I'll make dinner before you go slaying. Oh, we need to go to the grocery store. Do grocery stores sell blood?"

Spike and Buffy exchanged a grin and Buffy settled into the crook of his arm. "We'll go to the store and the butchers, Mum." Spike replied.

Joyce came down the stairs in a nice taupe suit, pulling on her heels and fiddling with an earring. "I'll get you some money."

"We'll pay you back." Buffy said with a small, uncomfortable feeling in her stomach.

Joyce paused, hand falling from her ear. "Sweetie, I'm your mother. It's food for all of us. You never had to 'pay me' to take care of you. Just because you're suddenly- grown up," she spoke around a small catch in her throat, "doesn't mean you owe me anything for making dinner. Except to help out around the house." She forced herself to look severe. "No wild parties. And take out the trash."

Buffy laughed as she moved to her mother. "We're not kids."

"You're _my_ kids." Joyce put a hand on Buffy's cheek, and then her own. "Oh dear. I have- oh dear. Getting married."

"Somethin' in my eye." Spike coughed from the couch. It was Joyce saying she had kids. Not kid. He was no child, but he still knew, even if he couldn't recall, that he had a mum he had loved, so much. So painfully much. There was a nagging feeling about her absence in his life that he couldn't place, and he wondered if he ever would. In the mean time- Joyce made a wonderful addition to his heart, when she wasn't upset.

"You're very soft hearted for a vampire." Joyce chuckled kindly.

"I'm a lover, _and_ a fighter." Spike chuckled as well. Then with a serious face he said, "Thanks. I know it's not easy for you. I won't let you down, though."

"You better not." Joyce smiled into his eyes, "I don't know if you remember it- but the last time you hurt my baby girl I almost sliced your head open with an ax."

Spike nodded. "Heard about that. Got a few glimpses of it, too. Won't have cause to do it again."

"Good. Well-" Joyce paused at the door, unsure of what words to say before leaving. Looking at them, Buffy so familiar, yet she was just getting to know her, her child, but also an incredibly adult young woman. Spike was a whole different matter. He was far older than her, but far younger in spirit, strange and frightening, yet very easy to accept in the context of Buffy. With Buffy- he was simply a loving and attentive man, who made her smile, who comforted her, protected her. Something Joyce had longed to be able to do but had never been able to achieve. No one protects the Slayer, the Slayer protects everyone else. _Spike is one of a kind, I'll say that._ "I'll be home around six."

"Bye Mom."

"Bye Joyce."

Buffy sighed as the door shut and locked. "I don't think she's there yet."

"No, Luv, don't thinks so." Spike kissed the top of her head affectionately. "Just out of curiosity- should we be focusing on getting the flat, or getting this wedding sorted? Money wise?"

"Being married or being alone together?" Buffy caressed his arms slowly, walking her fingers from wrists to elbows, muscular biceps and across hard pectorals. "Hmmmm."

Spike let his head dip down to capture her lips. She did something soft and probing with her tongue that made him burn with lust and want to forget the fact that they'd only just been up for a few hours and take her straight back up to bed. "We can get married any way you like, doesn't have to be too posh for us does it?"

"No. No no no." Buffy agreed. "Just you and me and people who love us. Dresses and flowers and rings. I bet we could do that in a couple days if we had to."

"No rushing, William will give his precious Poppet a lovely white wedding- and a blood red wedding night." Spike picked her up slightly, just enough to hold her hips above his, so they could grind together. "But being alone... don't think that can wait for too long."

"Agreed." Buffy said breathlessly, trying to wedge her knees up, get them to lock over his hip bones. "Way important. And I have my engagement ring back." She fluttered her fingers, one weighted down with the large silver piece. "I have my hubby -to-be around all the time. Inside my heart." She arched up, bringing his head to her soft, small hills of cleavage. "Inside my head." _Can you hear me thinking about you? _She kissed his forehead with a grin.

_Of course, and oooh, Slayer. Never knew you had those kind of thoughts before, Precious. _He gave a feral smirk up at her.

"Have you inside me. That's what I want. The wedding can wait until we get settled and it won't have to be a big deal. We have the important parts already." She tugged impatiently on him, hands now lacing at the back of his neck. "It's too hard to be quiet when we were both built for loud." She pouted. "C'mon upstairs with me?"

"I will. But there's one little thing I can feel nagging you. That last piece of your old life you put off putting away last night so we could celebrate."

"Yeah. The phone call to Angel. Giles did give me his number last night, but- we were about to go do lovey lusty stuff." She bounced against him.

"I know. But I just feel it in your mind, like you left one thing scratched off your old life's checklist."

Buffy regarded him critically for a minute. "Yeah. I guess I did. I don't even think about him, but part of me keeps poking me and telling me I should be."

"I think all you need to do is make that one last phone call. You're not in love, and you're not going to fall back in love with him. I get that. But you are one of those do-good types." He pushed her feet back to the floor with an effort. "You need to do the polite thing, return his call, and then you're free of the bastard."

"But I don't even have anything to say! I said it all the night he came to the mansion and barged in on us." She flushed pink. "That's a great first memory to have of him. The ex who walked in on us having post-smoochie sleep."

"The more your mind comes back, the worse you speak." Spike groaned. Buffy elbowed him and headed to the kitchen, finding her purse on the way, finding the phone. "You're going to have to put up with it. And all my other little flaws. I seem to remember I have an unhealthy urge for chocolate."

"That's no problem." Spike came up behind her as she rooted through her bag, looking for the number Giles' had given her. "I seem to remember I know a dozen unhealthy ways to use it."

"Put some on the grocery list, then." Buffy finally found the paper she was searching for, not in her bag but in the pocket of Spike's coat, digging through it as it hung over the coatrack in the hall. "Giles said this was the cell phone or the office phone?"

"I think he said office."

"Maybe I could just wait to call him until after five?" She suggested tentatively. Spike crossed his arms and cocked his head, raising his brows. "Oh all right!" She dialed fast, before she could change her mind. "Who knows what kind of office hours a vampire with a detective agency keeps anyway?"

* * *

><p>Angel sat in silence. Nothing moved. The only sound was the distant roar of traffic and the occasional muffled whimper of Walsh as she slept, bound and gagged in the back seat, thrown to the floor, blankets over her. Angel kept toying with his phone. He wasn't bored. A man with two hundred years of regrets is never bored, always has something to brood over.<p>

Now it was the fact that he sat here, had been sitting here, for a few hours and had about seven more to go before he could hand over his prisoner. The safety and darkness of the abandoned underpass kept him out of the sun and he wasn't worried about anyone discovering him. What he was worried about was cracking before he did his job.

He wanted to explain, but he didn't want to speak. And anyway, he had no one to speak to. No one who would really understand all he had lost.

* * *

><p>Cordelia packed Wesley off with a vague description of a ghoul haunting a basement and prayed he wouldn't die, but wouldn't come back soon either. She tidied the office, her desk, her boss's desk, and, because she was really and truly that bored, went down to tidy up his apartment. It was spartan to begin with, but what the heck, a guy with that many old weapons could at least use someone to polish them, right?<p>

This in mind, Cordelia made it all the way down to the basement level, crossed the threshold, and heard the office phone ringing. "See? Never clean what's not dirty. There's probably a moral there." She turned and raced back up the steps, just getting to the phone as the answering machine beeped. Her hand was on the receiver when Buffy's voice emerged. Cordelia's hand froze, the receiver remained in its cradle.

"Hi, Angel. It's Buffy Summers."

Only a few words, followed by a brief pause, but it made a huge impact.

"Oh my God..." Cordelia blinked and stepped back from the phone.

"I heard you called to see if we were okay during the post-plague of silence thing. We are. Voices are back and ...everything. So. Yeah. Thanks for asking. Have a good day. Or night. Whenever you get this. Anyway, thanks, bye."

Cordelia stared, and blinked, swallowing. "Oh Angel... I get it. I get it."

She remembered them both, the way they had been. So in love, darkly, desperately, unshakably (she'd even tried to get in there herself in those early days and test that theory) in love. So much pain. So much they'd gone through. And she'd never, ever stopped loving Angel, even when Angelus had taken over him. The girl with the permanently broken heart, that was what Cordelia had once thought of her as, when she was feeling nice, when she wasn't calling her a loser.

That wasn't Angel's Buffy on the phone. That was some stranger with Buffy's voice.

No wonder he was going to pieces. Cordelia ran her hands through her hair as if it would slow down her churning thoughts, blot out the one really big realization she was having. _Buffy's dead. _Angel's_ Buffy is dead._

* * *

><p>"You won't get out of this alive."<p>

"No kidding. Vampire." Angel grunted and lifted Walsh out of the backseat, hoisting her by the chain running between her wrists. She screamed in agony and he winced. He winced because he liked the sound, and because he knew he shouldn't.

"You'll pay. They won't keep me in there forever, and I have ways of tracking HSTs."

"Yeah, I heard. Come after me and I'll kill you. Come after anyone in Sunnydale, or anyone close to me- and I _won't_. You'll just wish I had." Angel dragged her through the overgrown weeds and grass of one of Sunnydale's cemeteries. "Unless you get eaten first."

"Chipped." Maggie spat. "All chipped, dead, or scared off. Weak, inferior creatures."

"I'm so putting your gag back in." Angel grunted and selected a headstone with a large cross as the topper, silently thinking that would help keep her safe until her pick up arrived. Once she was securely chained, and regagged, Angel patted her cheek in a patronizing way. "Now, stay right there." Her eyes glared fury at him and it only made him smile. "I mean it, Mags. You move- I'll chase you down. And I'm _not _chipped." He gripped her arm hard, and twisted it against the grain of the chains holding it. He heard the already fractured bone finally give with a sharp snap. "That's just a little parting gift. A little reminder. There's one you didn't chip, one you didn't kill- and he's fighting against you and what you want to do. Call it physical irony. The demon's reminding the human that human lives are precious, and you don't take them- any part of them, ever again." Angel's vamp had flared up, but settled back down. He finished speaking to her in his human face, his eyes no longer full of red hot hatred, but cold, hard threats. "Be good. Or I'll come back and finish what _you_ started."

Leaving Walsh weeping in pain, he distanced himself, phone out of his pocket. He slid inside a mausoleum and dialed Andrews number.

"Col. Andrews."

"Lady of Repose cemetery. Cross shaped headstone. Pick up your garbage." Angel snapped the phone shut and moved quickly, out of the cemetery, over to his car, then under it, and into the storm grate below it, that being the reason he'd chosen to park there in the first place.

He wasn't surprised when he heard the engines racing in less than five minutes. Military issued SUVs, special motors. There were three cars, sleek, black, illegally dark-tinted windows. Angel briefly thought they were excellent cars for a vampire.

Teams, four to a vehicle emerged, in black that matched their vehicles, except for one man, in a dark green uniform, hat tucked under his arm.

"We found her!" A voice rang out in a matter of seconds.

"She's in shock, and she's going to need some medical attention. Immediately."

"Negative. Put her in the car, do first aid, and get her on the chopper."

"Her arm is broken. Severe tissue deterioration and blood stagnation, but the break is fresh." One soldier called as they cut through the chains binding her to the stone.

"Put it in a sling, pump her full of saline, penicillin, and whatever the hell else you can fit in an IV bag, and let's go." Andrews insisted. His skin prickled. Somewhere, he knew that a vampire was watching him. It wasn't just any vampire, either. One who could cripple the top brass, play a dangerous game.

"He's still here. He's still here." Walsh mumbled incoherently, clutching the arms of the soldiers carrying her.

"Sir! Orders for pursuit of the HST?"

"Stand down. Do not engage. This mission is successful. Simons."

"Yes, Sir?"

"Tell DuVal to get his chopper ready. We have his package, and we'll be delivering it within twenty minutes."

* * *

><p>Angel watched this unfold, hearing Maggie's confused, incoherent cries become fainter and fainter. He watched the leader, Andrews, he guessed, scan the night, the gaze linger for a moment on his empty car, and travel on. As quickly as they'd come, they were gone.<p>

He waited until he couldn't hear the purr of supercharged engines any longer, slipped from the grate and back into his car. The antiquated radio on the vehicle showed him it was only just now 7:05. Days of agony, months of secret warfare- all concluded in five minutes. How anticlimactic. Feeling a cloud of emptiness building inside of him, he drove back the way he'd come, back out of Sunnydale, leaving behind the only one he'd ever loved, heart paining him doubly because she couldn't take five minutes to call and say she was okay, when he'd been juggling his soul for her.

_No one asked you to though, did they? _They had it under control, no kidnapping required, at least if he was piecing together Giles' information and Willow's passed on hacking correctly._ All I wanted to do was save her. Bring her back, like she brought me back. I made it stop, but they were already getting it to stop. God, was it all for nothing?_

* * *

><p>Cordelia let out a deep sigh of relief when Angel finally pulled his car in beside hers at the grungy truck stop diner and gas station a few miles outside of Sunnydale, heading back towards LA. "Hi!" Cordelia shamelessly scrambled from the car and into his, hugging him.<p>

"Hi to you, too." Angel let his arms dangle in surprise for a second before hugging her back hesitantly, with as little contact as possible. "Uh... this is new."

"You had a really bad week. Shut up." Cordelia released him. "You also look jumpy, twitchy, sad, and pale. Even for you."

Angel's lips twitched in a grimace that was meant to be a smile but couldn't make it. "It's okay. Yeah. It's okay now. The mad doctor is in the hands of the government. She'll be fine, or she won't be, but at least I got her back to them." Cordelia stared at him in confusion. "The army guys? I wouldn't be surprised if Walsh didn't make it to her court martial."

"No way."

"Maybe not. Maybe I'm just a little sick of humanity right now. Not seeing the upside from demonity. Demonic-ness. You know." He ran a hand agitatedly through his moussed mahogany hair, leaving it matted on one side and sticking up on the other.

Cordelia suppressed an exclamation of horror. Angel would deny until he was dust, but he was so vain about his hair. Mistreatment of the hair equals major bad. This was a code red. "I'm sorry you had to deal with a scummy human. They're out there. Occasionally. Just like occasionally there's a really great vampire in a sea of evil ones." Cordelia said in her best 'calm yet positive' voice. Angel just looked at her. "Wrong thing to say?" She scrunched her shoulders up hesitantly.

"Just didn't help. I feel - unsettled. It's over, but it's not _done_. I should have _finished _this."

"You_ did_. Just because you didn't murder someone who so deserved to get killed, doesn't mean it's not over. You brought her to justice, and if justice isn't served- that's not on you anymore."

"Isn't it? Then why do I feel like that?" He laughed bitterly.

Cordelia mused for a moment in the uncomfortable silence. "Maybe because there's one more thing you wanted. Right?"

Angel lifted his head slowly. He wanted to be angry at her for insinuating things, for knowing him so well, when no one should know him at all, not when he wasn't even sure of himself. But all he showed her was a pair of haunted, weary eyes.

"There's a message for you. On the office machine." Cordelia informed him softly.

"From who?" He asked even though he knew. There was no one left that he cared for. If Cordelia was easing her news out, it was about Buffy.

"Buffy." She confirmed and held out her cell phone.

"I can't call her until I hear what she said." Angel ignored the phone she offered.

"I know." _And you're probably not going to want to after you hear what she says anyway... _"You can call and get your messages."

"I can?" Angel looked thunderstruck. "Really? When did that happen?"

"Is it a male thing or an ancient undead guy thing? You _never_ read the manuals!" Cordelia cried in exasperation and punched in the answer center's number. "You don't have to be standing by the machine anymore, the calls are also stored so you can hear them from anywhere by dialing the answering center's number and entering our code."

"We have a code?"

"My birthday."

Angel shifted anxiously and became very intent on the steering wheel."Uhhh..."

She gave him a disgusted look. "You owe me Gucci for that." She dialed the code and handed the phone to him. Her expression softened immediately, watching his face transform.

_"Hi, Angel. It's Buffy Summers." _

His heart was already long silenced but it stopped beating all over again. Everything in him that came alive at the sound of her voice, died at her words. Buffy Summers. _She has to tell me her last name. Like I don't know her. Like we just met. Like I haven't been her guardian angel since she was fifteen. Like I didn't put my ring on her finger. Like I did't give her her first real kiss. Take her innocence and gift her back my own. Like saying her name isn't the only thing that saved me in hell... _Tears started to fall and his lips trembled.

_"I heard you called to see if we were okay during the post-plague of silence thing. We are. Voices are back and ...everything. So. Yeah. Thanks for asking."_

_ She's just returning my call. To be polite. _The words were polite and impersonal and vague. _ 'Thanks for asking.'? Thanks for asking? I wasn't taking a survey, I would have died to hear your voice, to hear you say you were okay. I wanted so badly for you to be okay without me, and now that you are- I'm dying inside, because I can't even reach out for you anymore. We'll never have that sweet torture of knowing we're loved, even if we can't be together. She will be loved. And I'll be- empty._

_ Have a good day. Or night. Whenever you get this. Anyway, thanks, bye." _

Angel let the phone fall from his boneless hand, and Cordelia caught it, closed it softly. "Angel?"

He was shaking. Such tight, tiny movements, so silent, that she couldn't tell if he was having a seizure, laughing in hysterics, or doing that really deep painful sobbing that comes from way down deep, so deep it bypasses your vocal cords and just rocks out of your soul.

"I didn't save her at all. She's- she's gone. She's gone, I lost her. I didn't save her, and I didn't save Doyle. I saved the bitch who_ took her from me_!" His silence was giving way to heart tearing wails, screaming, his fist moving now, punching the dash, the steering wheel. Three punches and his hands were back across his lower abs as he rocked forward in a paroxysm of mourning. "I've _never _saved _anything_ that mattered in the long run." He spat through his sobs.

Cordelia was shaken, past the point of discomfort and embarrassment she might have initially felt at watching a strong silent type bawl his guts out. She was past shock, down to simple core honesty. She had seen him upset before, he was a master of brooding and grieving and beating himself up. This wasn't like that. This was like someone's world ending. He had seen so much, done so many things, good and bad, but in reality his world was very small, at least the parts of it he treasured. There was Buffy. Lost to him. There was Doyle. Dead. And there was her. She wasn't very nice. She wasn't great or noble and good. But she was going to be the best she could to help people. Just like him. Maybe because of him. No, _definitely _because of him.

"You saved_ me_." She whispered.

The sobbing ended with a choking sound, Angel sitting up, surprised. And grateful. For someone who had opened up a lot lately, words evaded him. They didn't make words big enough when someone throws you a life line when you literally feel like you're drowning. "Thank you." He hugged her, hard, and sniffed in, forcing the tears to stop and his eyes to clear.

Miracle of miracles (at least in his frame of mind)she hugged him back, patting him on the shoulders. "It's okay. It's okay." She soothed. He snorted derisively at that. "It is!" She insisted. "Neither one of us is at our best, right now. But we can be. Seriously. Someday, it _will_ be okay. You know- if we don't give up."

"Yeah. Second chances." He sat up, adjusting his shirt, clearing his throat awkwardly. He wasn't very good with emotional things, and today he'd run the full emotional gambit.

Cordelia was also primping, doing the more ladylike version of throat clearing, little sighs as she dabbed her eyes with her fingers, fluffing her hair. "Right. Starting right now. Second chances."

"Right now?" Angel didn't know what that meant, and spontaneity off the battlefield had never been his strong point.

"Yes, right now! You need cheering up, and frankly, so do I." She fixed him with her luminous dark eyes, a spark inside of them. "Start simple. Second chance time. What's something you always wanted to do or try, but didn't get to on your first round?"

Angel thought. Stared at the dented car, at his tear damp sleeves. "Never done before, huh?"

"Right."

"To have a real friend." It escaped before he could censure himself.

Cordelia reacted with the brassy side of her personality, the truth of his words so raw and evoking so much pity- she didn't know how to channel it. Compassion was one of the things on her "need to improve" list- on the days when she admitted she wasn't perfect, that is. "That is so sappy." She said, staring at him, biting off each word.

"Hey!" Angel cried in a wounded voice. "Vulnerable here!"

"I know, but still! You're supposed to say 'sky diving' or something cool like that."

He disagreed vehemently. "Oh no. No, if the good Lord had meant man to fly he would've given us wings!" A hint of his Irish brogue slipped out as he expressed that old fashioned opinion. "I don't want to jump half a mile to the ground with a silk knapsack on my back."

"You can't even die, you big wimp." Cordelia needled him, lightly poking his arm.

"Breaking every bone in your body hurts though! Or- I could land on a tree branch. Right through the heart. Then what, huh?" He poked her back.

Cordelia tossed her hair and Angel huffed. Each snuck little glances at the other, the grouchy silence between them gradually thawing.

Cordelia ended it. "Friends. Sappy. Majorly. But y'know what? I know just what you mean." She studied her hands as she spoke. "Real friends are hard to find, and most of them have some kind of condition attached." _Harmony and the "In crowd". Gotta be fashionable, gotta be popular, pretty, rich. Cheerleaders- have to be a cheerleader. The good guys- it was so good at first, once you overlooked the dorkiness. But then Willow and Xander... No. _She'd never had a _real _friend either. She cleared her throat to make the tattletale lump go away. "Real friends, who accept you for the screw up, semi-evil or semi- bitch-like person you are- those are almost impossible to find." She addressed her comment to the car's ceiling.

Angel nodded, crossing his arms, head on his chest as he mumbled. "Tell me about it."

Cordelia mulled over all the pieces she'd seen in the last week. All the hidden moments, fears, joys, hopes, griefs of an intensely private person. Who would do anything for her. Who had, on multiple occasions, saved her life, told her she wasn't a failure, that she was valuable as a person and to him. A short time as friends. A long time as acquaintances. Wow. For almost half a year they'd been giving each other a second chance. Time to make it official.

"Okay. True, real friends then." She didn't want to get into another emotional tangle so she made her voice go into "dazzling starlet" mode. "Rule one- at least that's what I hear- is that we have to do fun, stupid stuff together."

Angel looked put off momentarily. "Like what?"

"Ummmm." Cordelia wracked her brains, looking about for inspiration. Which she found in the form of the greasy looking truck stop diner. "Well- eating here would rank as pretty damn stupid. A side of salmonella with every order." She chirped brightly.

"I don't eat people food." Angel reminded her.

"Ah ah ah- give new things a try, Angel!" She chided. "Second chances, new things!"

"Then can we do it somewhere with food that won't actually kill you? Since you're my only real friend?"

Oooh, he played her heartstrings. A feat that remarkably few people had ever achieved. "Hmm. We could just drive until we find a place that looks like it might actually meet health codes."

"Deal." He smiled.

"I'll lead the way." She popped open his passenger side door with an excited squeal.

"No! You speed!" Angel called after her.

"You drive like an old man." She countered, leaning down to speak to him through the half opened door.

"I _am_ an old man!" He reminded her with an exasperated shout.

"Oh, c'mon Gramps." She slammed the car door and sashayed back to her own vehicle in her designer heels.

"Harlot." He teased out the rolled down window.

Cordelia gasped at him. "Angel!

"Ahh, Cordy." He sighed with a grin and started his engine.

"No fair! You were already in! Angel! I'm going to pass you anyway, you know!" She shouted after him, and soon he could hear her engine cranking to life.

They both drove smiling into the night, heading home, heading towards a second chance at starting over.

_To be concluded..._


	28. Chapter 28

You an' Me Against The World

By Sweetprincipale

_Author's Note: Set in Early Season Four, immediately following Something Blue, then departs from canon._

_Author's Second Note: Glycerine- Can be defined as something used to smooth the way. For our couple- love has smoothed so many things. In this chapter I used the wonderfully bruising and beautiful "Glycerine" by Bush. The song lyrics are somewhat obscure, but I saw a connection. The true power is in the melody and words combined, just like our dynamic duo. May I suggest listening to it during the pertinent part of the chapter?_

_Dedicated to DLillith21, ginar369, cavemenftw, The Three March Hares, Lil-Let, Rosalea12, omslagpapper, rororogers, Litalove, Sirius120, and alexiarrose. Thank you also to the kind anonymous reviewers, whether you are new readers, or old ones who forgot to log in!_

_Direct quotes from songs and shows are obviously not mine but belong to the enormously talented people who created them. _

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

Part XXVIII

_Epilogue_

_June, 2000 (About seven months after the previous chapter.)_

"Oi! Break it up! Hands an' suckers off!" Spike growled and shook a vampire and Cephaloid demon roughly by their necks. "Do it again an' I'll rip off an arm each. Now play nice!"

"Sorry, Spike."

"Glrgl."

" It's alright." Spike stalked off, back to the front of the bar and pulled his pint from under the bar counter. "You have to make 'em stop, Willy."

"I can't!"

"You're the barkeep! You're the bloody owner! You can!"

"But it gives the place a little class."

"No, it doesn't." Spike said through gritted teeth. "Poker is a bar game. Pool is a bar game. Even checkers can be a bar game." He explained patiently. "Mah Jong is an' old ladies game and Cepahloids are notorious for cheating when the tiles get 'stuck' in their suckers! Clear up the game set tonight, and next time I see it out- I'm gonna make you eat every damn piece!" Spike hoisted Willy up by his apron, and then set him down and brushed him off apologetically.

"G-good idea. Right. No more Mah Jong." Willy stammered.

"Thanks. Good plan, Boss." Spike drained the rest of his blood, wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist, and checked the clock. Eleven. Just another hour or so, keep an eye on the place after that ludicrously stupid brawl. Spike made his own hours. He usually came in, threatened, swaggered, sorted out the ruffians, and in general had the place quiet and contented in an hour or two. Then he tipped Willy the nod, glared around the place once more, and left after "reminding" everyone to be good. Or be hunted down by him or the Slayer. Nice thing about having a "workplace romance".

* * *

><p>"Off on your little weekend getaway?" Wesley smiled to Cordelia. "Ah, the perils of dating a colleague- who can lose his soul if he becomes too pleased..." His playful tone turned serious.<p>

Cordelia laughed out a snort at his folly. "So not 'dating a colleague'. We just hang out because we're too weird to have any normal friends. I mean- except for you and Gunn, of course." Wesley pointedly returned to his writing up a case file on his temporary desk- her table. Cordelia sighed and ignored his snit. "And it's not a weekend, it'll be just overnight and we're only staying away tomorrow because we can't drive back in the sun thanks to the King of the Pale People. Lastly- _Angel_? Get perfectly happy around _me_, Princess Bitch? Not possible."

"Not unless you learn to be _on time for once_!" Angel hollered from the hallway of Cordelia's apartment. "Seriously, Cordy, I mean -we're already late now. We'll never make it by midnight. We're not going to be able to -" He stalled.

"We're fine, it's barely eleven! You just want to wimp out." She put her hair in a tight bun. "You have _no_ idea how long it took me to find someone who would even do this in the dark!"

"What exactly are you two doing?" Wesley asked nervously, huffiness forgotten in worried curiosity.

"Jumping out of a plane." She grinned and pulled her purse onto her shoulder.

"What?" Wesley sprang from his chair in surprise. "Jumping? From a plane?"

"You heard her." Angel moaned and paced outside the front door.

"He's being a baby. Ignore him." Cordelia waved it off. The brunette lowered her voice. "Oh- and you will tell them we said hi?" She slipped him something across the table, nudging him to take it, looking furtively over her shoulder unless Angel came back.

"Yes, of course. You're sure you two don't want to come with me and-"

"Absolutely sure." Cordelia hissed with a warning in her eyes.

"Wes, if we die- Gunn can have my axes. Oh, and you get the books." Angel reappeared in the doorway, just in time to see Cordelia hastily slide a large white envelope tied with a silk bow to Wesley, and shove it under his case folder. His heart ached so badly for a moment he felt crippled, his whole gut spasmed, and he had to lean on the door for support. Then he was being supported. Cordelia was under his arm, pushing him up and out.

"Come on! Even charter planes only wait so long, Mr. Punctuality. Let's go, let's go, let's go!" She hustled him forward.

Angel swallowed. He squeezed her shoulders slightly with his arm as he found his feet again, wanting to say that he knew all about what she'd just done, just from one little glimpse. That the card was probably signed from both of them. That it was her little gesture of saying "See? We're okay. Get on with your lives, we're getting on with ours." He wanted to tell her he knew she was shielding him, being strong for both of them. That she was a good friend. His _best_ friend. But they didn't do that heartfelt emotional stuff too much. So he straightened up and looked at Wesley with long suffering eyes as he was tugged away. "Oh, and if we both die, Wes? I want you to have something put on Cordy's gravestone." He gave her a mock glare.

"Of- of course." Wesley stared at the strange pair in a mixture of affection and consternation. "What?"

" 'Told you so'. Then have them sign my name."

Cordelia rolled her eyes. "Shut up, Angel. Bye Wes! Bye Dennis!"

Wes could hear them going down the stairs. "We're taking my car."

"No, we're not!" Angel disagreed.

"Yes, we are!"

"No, we're not! Cordelia! We are not!"

Wesley slammed the door behind them. "Dennis?" He plaintively asked the seemingly empty room. "Does Cordelia have anything alcoholic on hand?" The spirit roommate popped the door of the fridge open and soon an aluminum can floated towards him. Wesley seized it gratefully. "Thank God. I rather needed a drink. And by the time this little trip is done- so will Angel and that poor pilot."

* * *

><p>"You've been drinking again, haven't you? Spike said he warned you. Keep to the bagged stuff, eat at the butchers or Willy's." Buffy kicked the vampire twice in quick succession, chest, and jaw, so that the snarling, orange eyed fiend flew about eight feet in the air and landed on his back atop the dumpster in back of the Bronze. "Dammit. Stupid claim strength." Buffy muttered. She crouched, gripped her stake harder, and launched herself up onto the steel lid.<p>

"Slayer!" The vampire cried, trying to struggle back up.

"I don't remember your name, sorry." Buffy squatted above him. "But I know your face. You know the rules- you get one warning, then you get a visit from me. You keep your fangs _in_!" Buffy staked him in the heart and then leapt back to ground level amid the cascade of dust. "Willow?" She called, looking around the dark alley.

"Here! She's fine." Willow helped a young woman back into the Bronze, a thick wad of tissues pressed to the victim's neck.

" And she'll check for a pulse next time her dance partner asks her to step outside." Xander added.

"They should've taught that in the sex ed class around here." Buffy laughed. "But no. Just give us all those little bezoar eggs."

Xander offered an arm to each of the ladies he was with in the alley. Both of them took one. It was so nice to have his old Buff back. At least the Buff who remembered high school. Who remembered him. Maybe a little more honest and critical, and way more soppy and into PDAs with her oh so pale honey- but still. A cool best friend. That hadn't changed.

"What's the deal for tonight?" Willow asked. "It's getting late."

"I need my sleep."

"We all need our sleep."Anya yawned as she greeted them. "I got what's her name- Bite Girl, back to her girl friends."

Tara added, "They're taking her to the ER."

"Good. I'll have to tell Spike about Mr. Ashy out there. He has a little tally book he shows to the nasty ones at the bar when they get rowdy." Buffy sat back down and drained her soda. "What time is it?"

"Just midnight. Do you want to get home?"

Buffy smiled mysteriously into her glass. "No. He's almost here." She put her empty glass down and stretched her toned legs, slipped off her jacket, revealing a tight silk, sleeveless top. It showed off her buttercream skin, a shade or two lighter than the tan she'd sported last year, now that she spent more time outside at night than in the day, and trips to the beach had been traded for moonlight dinners and late night movies. She tossed her hair, still long and now smooth, waved to her friends, and walked to the dance floor. She danced alone, but she moved like she was swaying with someone.

* * *

><p><em>Must be your skin that I'm sinkin' in <em>

_Must be for real, cause now I can feel_

He was coming. She could feel him. Getting closer and closer. And soon she'd feel-

Cool hands on the back of her neck, running down her shoulders until his hands met hers and they locked together at her waist. "Hello, Luv."

_I didn't mind _

_It's not my kind_

_Not my time to wonder why _

She leaned back into his chest, tilted her head up and brushed her lips to his. Memories had come back. Patchy in places, some missing altogether, many missing in Spike's case. He had a hundred years of back log, but more came back every day. Didn't matter. No more questioning, no more doubting, no more second guessing.

_Everything's gone white _

_And everything's gray _

_Now you're here, now you're away _

Shades of gray. A slayer and a vampire together. Everyone knew. Not everyone liked. Screw everyone that got in the way.

_I don't want this _

_Remember that _

_I'll never forget where your at._

"Sorry I'm late. Mah Jong fight."

"I don't mind. I always knew you were coming." Buffy sighed comfortably.

_Don't let the days go by _

_Glycerine_

"Course I was. Never let a free moment go by without tryin' to find you."

"I'm glad. Friends are good, but you- mm. No substitute." Buffy turned to face him.

_I'm never alone _

"Well, yeah. We're the only couple like us in the world, I imagine. Only one's in each other's heads."

_I'm alone all the time _

"I know. I like never being lonely." Said the girl who was supposed to fight and die alone, the Chosen One. Now claimed. Part of a Chosen Pair.

_Are you at one _

_Or do you lie _

_We live in a wheel _

_Where everyone steals _

_But when we rise it's like strawberry fields _

He closed his eyes and pulsed beside her."Sorry we were so lonely an' alone all that time. But it's better now, isn't it?" Hope filled him, filled her. They had struggled along, like any young couple juggling jobs, school, and their first home together, but they were breaking the surface of the dark waters now. They were rising above it all, the best times of their lives about to begin. "Good times about to start."

"Good times already started."

He nodded into her hair and hugged her tightly to his chest.

_If I treated you bad _

_You bruised my face _

Memories washed over them, shared when they were so close, one mind in two beings. Fights. Fighting against each other. Fighting together against other things. Buffy made a little whimper of exhaustion. Such a long road.

_Couldn't love you more _

_You got a beautiful taste. _

"Don't, Luv. Let me kiss it better, Poppet." Spike tilted her head up and made love to her mouth, thumbs resting on her claim on one side and on her pulse on the other.

_Don't let the days go by _

_Could have been easier on you _

"It's fine. We're fixing it. No more against. Only together."

_I couldn't change though I wanted to _

_Should have been easier by three _

_Our old friend fear and you and me. _

Buffy pulled back to look at him. Big smiles on both their faces. "That's right, Pet. All fixed up. No fear here."

"Why would there be?"

"Oh you know. Some myth about cold feet."

"You_ do_ have cold feet."

"I also have an excellent way to get warm."

_Glycerine _

_Don't let the days go by _

_Glycerine _

_Don't let the days go by... _

_Glycerine _

"Not now." She smiled, biting her lower lip with half-longing, half-bashfulness.

"But- seize the moment." Spike protested and licked his lips. "We'd be out of sight. Lots of places around only us flexible types can get to."

"Mmm..." She hesitated, torn. "No. We shouldn't. It's bad luck!"

"I'm a bad man." He reminded her with a dark smile, teeth grazing her cheek, dragging lower until he brought his jaw up to close, a sweet, succulent love bite where her pulse beat erratically under his touch.

_Bad mood, white again _

_Bad mood, white again _

"Oh God. Never mind. We make our own luck." Buffy gave up her protests and in a second he was dragging her weak-kneed body from the dance floor.

_And she falls around me. _

_I needed you more _

_When we wanted us less _

_I could not kiss, just regress_

He slipped back into some kind of pre-evolved lust, where words were all but forgotten. So much fighting and railing against themselves, and then their circumstances, their pasts, her friends and family- but finally, he had his mate. Truly, properly, and irrevocably his. "Mine."

_It might just be _

_Clear, simple and plain _

_Well that's just fine _

_That's just one of my names. _

"Yours." She cried out and felt him slam inside of her, pinning her to the brick wall in the shadows.

_Don't let the days go by _

_Could've been easier on you, you, you _

The stone scratched her shoulders. She raked his waist. They bucked together hard, racing each other to the edge. He bit down and she bit back. "Slayer." He gasped out. She'd broken the skin this time. And he loved her for it.

"William." He came, hard and fast inside her, pulling her over the precipice in his wake.

_Glycerine_

Then he smoothed her skin with his heated, feverish kisses, hands all over her scuffed back, her neck, her face. "I love you."

"I can feel it." She tilted her head back and looked up at the obscured edges of sky she could see through their hiding place. She could see the world though, in his eyes, soft but piercing blue eyes. "I love you, too.

He helped her down, covered her up. She smoothed out his shirt and sleeked his hair.

"Goodnight." A kiss.

"See you tomorrow." Two kisses.

"No, today." She had to extricate herself before they went for round two.

"See you later." He whispered, and watched her disappear back inside. He swallowed hard, drinking the last of her blood in the well of his throat, the scent of her in his nostrils. He flexed his shoulders, tightened his belt, and walked into the night.

* * *

><p>"You left once already, didn't you?" Willy asked, puzzled when Spike came back in.<p>

"I'm back." Spike rolled his eyes and kicked his way past the rubbish on the floor to get behind the bar.

Willy edged away from him as he came around the bar. Spike made him ill at ease. Less and less over time, but still- it was hard to reconcile the Big Bad still being evil, but helping him out. And not punching him. "We're fine. No one got crazy. Although that Cephaloid left slime all over the back room. Think he's pissed. Might make trouble."

"Well, you'll just have to deal with that yourself. You, big strong man, you." Spike patted his cheek- more like a slap, really, but good natured. Mostly.

"Then why're you back if you ain't gonna help with the mess you made, huh?"

"Pickin' up my pay. And reminding you, I'm not in for a week. Don't let this place go under, alright? Don't need the stress. I've got my priorities." He sneered, reached into the cash register, let Willy swat at his hand, and then he handed him a sealed envelope.

"Here's your money, now go. Get outta here." Willy shooed him along.

* * *

><p>Spike wandered aimlessly for a bit. Pretty night. High, white moon. Soft breeze. Too much energy to work off. He hoped the Watcher was still up.<p>

* * *

><p>Giles jumped a foot when Spike barged in. "Spike!" He yelped, dropping his book and pen as he stood up, blinking himself out of the dozy state he was in. He must've fallen asleep in his chair. "It's half-past one in the morning! Don't you knock?"<p>

"Not as long as you keep hidin' the spare in the same place." Spike smirked, twirled the small silver key, then leaned back outside to replace it in its hiding place.

Giles groaned, muttered to the heavens, and then trooped off to the linen closet. "I'll make up the couch."

"Nice of you to let me stay tonight, Rupes."

"Don't call me that." He replied automatically, as if one who'd had long practice. Which he had. He sighed and tossed the vampire a pillow. "As long as it's only the one night."

"You know it will be." He replied with easy confidence.

Giles smiled slightly, when his face was towards the wall, of course. "Do you have everything you need from your flat?"

"Xander didn't bring my gear over?" Spike stopped tucking in the sheet and straightened up with a concerned expression.

"He brought over two bags and I picked up all of our suits." Giles pointed to the hall closet.

"Then everything should be here." Spike went to the closet, examined his bags, the suits, and talked. He had to,because the adrenaline was far from slowing down, speeding up instead. Every second ticking by, every glance around reminded him of what was happening. He felt like he could fly. "Been a good night. Everything's set at the bar. And in the town, I think."

"You saw Buffy, then?" Giles paced, straightening, puttering. Spike's energy was infectious.

"Yeah. She's done patrolling." Spike nodded, coming back to the couch and flopping down on it.

"Oh, yes, I heard. Joyce called awhile ago to tell me Buffy got in safely. She's in good hands. Willow, Tara, Anya- they're all there tonight."

"Yes, the hens all roosting together." He chuckled, kicked his now bare feet lazily up on the sofa and closed his eyes briefly. "Is Xander coming here in the morning?"

"Should be. Of course he is." He gave up and poured two large shots of Scotch, set one in Spike's hand, and held the other as he paced, sipping, and fidgeting.

Spike drained his and sighed. Contentment was washing over him. Buffy was nice and safe with all her girls about her. Her mum watching over the lot of them. His things were here, everything he needed for tomorrow was in order. His eyes closed and fluttered back open as Giles began taking down a shelfful of books and then replacing them, apparently reorganizing as he went.

"Rupert?"

"These were indexed according to language, not alphabet. Willow knows better. Must've been Buffy." He murmured.

"Rupert? Settle down. You need a good night's sleep."

"I'm finding it strangely difficult to settle." Giles stared at him pointedly under lowered brows, the cause of his sudden return to wakefulness and the grating of his nerves.

Spike rolled languidly to his back, sliding a black rectangular box from his hip pocket and then opening it. "Well, try anyway, would you?" He rested the box on his abs, running a single fingertip gently across the twin silver bands, gazing lovingly at the smooth, gleaming circles, then looked up at the other man, who was watching him with a curiously pleased smile on his lips. "Anyone would think _you_ were the one gettin' married tonight."

Giles said nothing for a moment, just stared. "It's nice to see both of you so happy." He finally acknowledged, sipping his drink and feeling tiredness reassert itself as he watched the lingering, restful way Spike caressed his wedding bands. Like a man at peace. Like a man in love. "You are, aren't you? Truly happy now?" In spite of everything that happened, and continued to happen, to challenge them, they'd never faltered from each other.

Spike closed the box and patted it reassuringly. "Happiest people in the world, Slayer an' I. Happiest in the whole world."

_The end of this story, but not of their happiness. Thank you for sharing it with us._


End file.
